


Carving

by wendighost



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Solavellan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-09
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-06-07 09:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 46,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6797773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendighost/pseuds/wendighost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lux Lavellan dreams she is the Queen of a ruined city, and wakes up to find herself crowned the Herald of Andraste. She has waited all her life to be something more than a backwater Dalish hunter, to carve out her own path--and so she takes the title in stride. But when companions, advisors and the powers that be all pull her in different directions, she must decide what that path is and what kind of hero she will be; not an easy task when the strongest pull she feels is towards a mysterious elven mage with his own agenda and a thousand years of baggage. <br/>Lavellan/Solas, some Lavellan/Cullen. Trippy dream sequences, some steamy stuff later on. Intended to fill the gaps between moments in Inquisition and Trespasser, but may move beyond Trespasser in future installments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hands

Lux Lavellan dreamt she was the queen of a ruined kingdom.

Its grounds were littered with the shards of porcelain statues, its halls were walked by spirits, and on its cracked throne she sat for what felt like a thousand years. She passed judgment on the remains of commanders of battles long since lost. She was trusted here, perhaps loved, but in the back of her mind she could feel her body across a long distance. When she focused as hard as she could, she could feel her hand, stabbed straight through as if with a knife.

She saw herself. She made to call out, but her voice was unfamiliar and far away. _Help,_ it said. _Please, end the pain. Please._

I’m sorry, came the response. She looked for the source, but the echoes off the walls told her that the source was her.

 _Come now,_ came another voice, tangible now. Lux saw a figure at the great doors, outlined in light.

 _Come now,_ it called again, this time urgent. _Quickly!_

Lux launched herself from the throne and she was running up a hill, spiders, dark things, evil things on every side. _Quickly!_ She looked back for her kingdom but it was only the Fade now, green and dark and cold straight to her bones. And then there was light, and cool hands gripping her own.

Her hands. Her hand.

Electricity licked up her arm and shocked Lux awake.

Her hands were shackled, and it was cold again. She was in a prison.

She sat up with a start. She saw the guards, swords pointed at her and lifted her hands to defend herself, but they made no move towards her and the gesture bred more pain, this time a tingling that spread from the center of her hand out to the tips of her fingers.

She unwrapped the bandages on her hands and examined the wound. It was green and black, like something she’d just seen but couldn’t quite place.

_The Conclave?_

Everything came back to her in a rush. Her clan’s mission, the endless talks and near misses and shouting, the bag full of silver cups and candleholders, desperate hopes of escaping into the night quashed by a blizzard. She remembered getting up at night, going to check to see if the snow had abated, a light on at the end of the hall. Then nothing.  
A memory danced at the back of her head, something about a castle, white shards covering the ground. Lux strained to grasp it, but at the thought her hand crackled with green and white light. She gasped and clenched her fist.

The door burst open.

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now.”

\--

Lux allowed herself a moment to stop and stare at the Breach. Her hand went a little numb at the sight of it, but she couldn’t tell if that was the mark or just her nerves.

There was a pit in her stomach--a seed, her mother would have called it. She used to say that when the Keeper made a short-sighted choice, or when they moved deeper into the forests. She never knew what to do with the powerlessness she felt, the anger. It’s a seed, mother would say. You keep it in you, you care for it, and it grows into something strong and steady.

The feeling was utterly similar, but she could place the seeds of her childhood and track their growth. She watched them grow all the way to the Conclave. But this was something different. A seed of what, she had no idea. Terror? Confusion? Excitement? Whichever it was, it made her uncomfortable more than anything else.

“We must keep moving,” the Seeker said.

Lux looked up. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s a lot to take in.”

The Seeker frowned. She seemed unsure of what to say. But as she opened her mouth, Lux heard the clang of a sword up ahead. “Fighting,” she said.

They unsheathed their swords.

Lux flew up the stairs and emerged into the clearing. There were monsters and spirits and men fighting, and in the middle of it, a tear the size of her forearm, reaching out for her with white tendrils. Something nudged at her again. _They saw a woman in the Fade behind you,_ the Seeker had said. _No one knew who she was._

She pushed away the memory and hurled herself at a shade, tearing into its face with her sword until it disappeared underneath her. She leapt to her feet and drove another one into the ground. She forced everything behind her except these monsters, and one by one she took them until there was a short man in front of her, not a spirit. “Whoa, watch it!” he said, and she whipped around to find the next spirit, but someone grabbed her wrist.

“Quickly, before more come through!”

_Cool hands, gripping her own._

She froze in place. Electricity flowed through her again, but no pain this time. No, this feeling was liberating, like a weight off of her shoulders she didn’t know she was carrying. She leaned into it and faced the Rift, the cool hands steadying her. Finally she clenched her hand into a fist and tore it away, and she felt a pull like thread through fabric closing a hole, and the Rift was closed and the light gone.

The hands let go. She turned to the source and was surprised to discover that it was real.

And it was another elf.

“What… what did you do?”

“I did nothing,” he said. His voice was as cool and steady as his fingers, but he couldn’t fully mask his relief. “The credit is yours.”

She looked up at the space where the Rift used to be, and back at her hand. It was really gone, closed as if never open.  
_There is a hole in the sky, and I am the only one who can close it._ The thought made her shudder.  
Something stirred inside her, a seed taking shape and starting to grow.


	2. Horses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene takes place during the first outing to the Hinterlands, but after the first conversation with Solas at Haven.

Lux brushed out the horse’s mane, bridled it and rubbed its nose. “You were right, Master Dennet. Your horses are well-bred.”

“They’re the best damn horses in all Thedas,” he answered. “And a deal’s a deal. I’ll have them sent to Haven straight away. I’ll pack my things and follow in a week’s time.”

“Thank you. If I could ask for one more favour…”

“Of course.”

“Would you have two more horses bridled for my companions?” she gestured to Solas and Cassandra. Dennet sized them up, nodded and called for his daughter.

She’d asked Varric to come along as well, but he’d elected to stay back at camp. “If you saw me on a horse, you’d understand,” he’d said.

None of her companions had understood why, on arriving at the Hinterlands, she came here first. Of course, Dennet needed the mages and Templars out of his way, and she went about the task with every bit of her strength. But she hurt her ankle taking a fall at the Templar camp, and they expected her to break and return to Haven, or at least to the camp to have it checked out. Instead she herded a stray Druffalo home, hunted rams, killed a pack of wolves and sealed three rifts to make the farm safe, all with a sense of wild urgency that unsettled Cassandra, though she didn’t say anything. When Varric suggested they slow down, Lux glared at him and told him not to worry. It was an order, not a reassurance. 

Now, Solas saw the reason for her urgency. With a wide step she mounted the steed and took the reins, and straightened herself out into a posture that was at once lopsided and confident. She rode awkwardly--it was disjointed, like she was compensating for being just a little too short for the horse--but it was an awkwardness she seemed used to. She leaned her head back and loosened the reins. 

For the first time since Cassandra called the Inquisition, Lux looked truly comfortable. He watched her until she noticed. She turned to him and smiled.

“I thought the Dalish did not ride their Halla,” he said. “Where did you learn?”

“There was a stable near our clan,” she answered. “One of the Horsemaster’s sons let me ride the horses if I cleaned the stables.” She smiled at the memory: running through the woods in the early mornings, jumping in the freezing rivers in the forest to mask the smell of manure, rolling amidst hay bales and saddles with the boy, a mess of skin and sweat. 

“Your clan let you interact with humans?” 

Lux shook her head. “Not like it stopped me.” She couldn’t get the bitterness out of her voice.

She was done with nostalgia. She spurred her horse to a canter and they flew along the road and down the hill towards the river. Cassandra took it in stride, but Solas looked a little rusty on his horse--he tilted to one side for a half-second before regaining his composure. It was the first time she’d seen him off balance, she realized. 

She led them to the bottom of the hill and slowed at the water. Thankful for the moment, her horse leaned down to drink. She turned to Solas, who was steady again, all steadiness, his face rested in a half-frown.

“I am surprised you took such pains for a pleasurable ride through the Hinterlands,” he remarked. 

“I would be as well, if that were the case,” she said. She gave the horse a pat on the neck, then pulled it up and led it across the bridge.

“Then what is the purpose of this, Herald?” Cassandra asked. 

Lux nodded towards the village. People were gathered just by the entrance. “When we got here, all they knew were raiders, passing through their land and wreaking havoc. We’re no different if we destroy their enemies and then cower back in our tents. We have to have a presence here if the Inquisition is to be anything.”

Cassandra looked surprised at that, but not unpleasantly. “Of course.”

Lux straightened in her seat, pushed her shoulders back and hid the lopsided, comfortable girl in favour of the Herald of Andraste, and they rode like that through the village, the townspeople watching them with nearly as much anticipation as Lux felt inside her now.

She fell into line with Solas when she saw him looking at her again. “This is the first time any of them have seen our people like this,” she added, her voice just a little lower. “I didn’t want them to see another clan passing through. I have to show them better.”

“So you are doing all of this for the Elvhen?” Solas asked. She didn’t miss the consternation in his voice. 

“What choice do I have?” She didn’t intend for it to come out so defensively, but out it came. “The Dalish hide in their forests and the City Elves rot in slums. These people will do everything they can to see us that way. But if I can show them something else, if I can show them that _I_ am something else…” the girl was coming back now: the girl who still smelled like hay and human sweat even after lying in the river, the girl who bit her tongue until it bled as the Keeper yelled at her. 

She pushed her down and took a breath. “You said it yourself, Solas. I’m going to be a hero. I’m not going to let them make me another Elven martyr.” She slowed the horse to a stop. For a moment, she feared that the townspeople had heard her, but Cassandra had fallen back and started giving out ram hides, so they had gathered by her a ways away. 

“You have noble ideals, _lethallin_ ,” Solas said. “I only wonder if you get ahead of yourself. It may be that no matter what you do you will not sway these people from their views.”

Lux noted the endearment with some surprise, but looking at him she felt that he didn’t take the term entirely seriously. Perhaps he was using it to test her.  
“I can’t think that way,” she said simply.  
“I see.” He studied her again. She still wasn’t used to the feeling of being studied, and part of her wondered if she’d passed his test, but she but found the attention not unwelcome.

Cassandra rejoined them. “With that, the townspeople should be safe from cold and hunger.” She looked at Lux with something the elf hadn’t expected to see: admiration. It was only the slightest hint, but she found herself smiling at the accomplishment.  
“We did well today, Herald,” she continued. “We should return to Haven and tend to your leg.”  
The reminder of the pain made it real again; Lux hadn’t noticed she’d been suppressing it. “Of course.”

They got to the top of the hill, almost to the camp, before she realized she was still sitting straight, shoulders back, poised like the Herald of Andraste. She slouched in the saddle.


	3. Bruises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mark on Lux's hand begins to worsen, and she approaches Solas, who suggests a rather unique form of therapy. Takes place after the first flirtatious dialogue following the Hinterlands, but before the Mages/Templars.

The injury to Lux’s leg was worse than it had seemed. She tried to ignore it for some time, but after two more sojourns to the Hinterlands and a rather frustrating meeting at Redcliffe, it had worsened. Cassandra spotted her massaging it one day, and when she insisted on taking off her boot and found a mess of black and blue, she demanded that she go straight to the medics. A week’s bedrest, they said. Varric spun it as a vacation, Sera made some comment in poor taste about light-footed elves, and Solas said nothing. 

Lying in bed gave her literal cabin fever. In the past few weeks she’d spent far too much time unconscious for her liking, and napping any more time away seemed like a waste. She was too impatient for reading, too unfocused for writing, and not at all talented at the lute that sat by the foot of her bed.

And so, by the second day she was walking around camp, hiding her limp as best she could. By the fourth day she was good enough at hiding it that she decided to take a stroll around Haven. She made a point of meeting with her advisors; she wouldn’t have this injury undo what credit she had earned thus far. 

She spoke with Cullen for the first time at length. She’d met him on the battlefield at the Temple of Sacred Ashes, but at that time she was still in shock, and nothing felt real. Speaking with him now, she found she quite liked him. He gave off an air of strength and authority that she appreciated, not to mention that he had the looks to bolster it. He responded awkwardly to her mild flirtations, but not in the negative. But what she liked most of all was that he almost certainly noticed her pain, but though he gave her a concerned look when she walked over to him, he didn’t say anything. 

She spoke with Josephine for the first time as well, who complimented her on her becoming behaviour at the Hinterlands. She seemed most of all relieved to hear of Lux’s actions, which she called chivalric--perhaps she’d expected less of her, for what reason Lux didn’t intend to speculate. Nonetheless, she’d planned all sorts of diplomatic meetings with religious figures and the like, now confident that Lux might hold her own. 

Leliana was more difficult to parse. Lux found her debating over whether to kill a traitor in the ranks. Lux didn’t abide traitors, and said as much--but Leliana’s anger was so palpable that Lux almost regretted being honest. She left rather abruptly after that.

Lux meant to speak with the quartermaster, but an ache in her hand stopped her in her tracks. When she lifted off her glove, she found her hand purple and bruised around the mark, along her wrists and her knuckles. She kept it from shocking her and scaring the soldiers, but its electricity brimmed under the surface of her skin. It also amplified the pain in her leg and made her head sing and spin like the high note of a violin. 

She tried to push the feelings down, regained her composure and made her way to the edge of the camp, where she found Solas standing by the apothecary’s cabin, staring out at the Breach. 

“Hello,” he greeted. He was calm as ever, though he must have noticed something.

“Can you come to my cabin? I need to speak with you in private.”

“We have privacy here. Why do you need me in your cabin?” Testing her again. If the pain wasn’t bothering her so, she might have come up with a retort. 

“It’s the mark,” she said instead. “It’s acting up. I…” the violins caught her off-guard and almost knocked her off of her good foot. Solas steadied her.

“Alright,” he said. He offered her his hand, but she walked on her own, as steadily as she could until he closed the door of the cabin. He pulled out the desk to the middle of the floor as she relaxed into a chair. 

“Let me see,” he said. She pulled off her glove and laid her hand out on the table.   
He sat in the chair opposite from her and took her hand in both of his, leaning over it and frowning at the bruises. His fingers were cool and dry, their tips smooth and electric, prodding her palm with little bursts of magic. The touch was deeply familiar. For a second she imagined herself on a throne. 

She felt her fingers close around his. 

He looked up at her, clearly a little surprised. Lux let go as if by reflex. “How does it look?” she asked.   
“It is difficult to say,” he said. “When I healed you after the Conclave, I thought I had contained the mark enough that it would not hurt you. But it seems that as long as the Breach remains in the sky, your condition will continue to worsen.”

“But this is the first time I’ve felt like this since the Temple,” she protested.

“Yes, and since then we’ve closed several rifts and expended your physical energy fighting mages and Templars. Unfortunately, it seems that taking a break from this activity has had a negative effect.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that conserving your energy will worsen the mark. I can find a way to mitigate this effect in time, but as it is, you will need to keep up a high level of activity, and close as many rifts as you can.” 

She frowned. “If only I could. But with this leg…” 

“There are ways to remain active without being on your feet.”

His words hung in the air between them for a moment. She bit her lip to stop herself from blushing. “Oh?” she managed. “And what do you have in mind?”

He smiled lightly. “I may be able to work with you in the Fade. There, you can safely fight and expend your mental energy without using your leg.”

“Of course.” She tried to sound intellectual instead of flustered, with limited success. “You’d be willing to do that?”

“You are interested in my journeys in the Fade, are you not? You may not be able to maintain lucidity as I can, but the experience should be interesting nonetheless.”

_Interesting._ The word carried some potential, for what Lux wasn’t sure.   
“Alright,” she said. “Tonight, then? You’ll find me in the Fade?”  
“Tonight.” Gingerly, he closed her hands with his own, and took his leave. 

She sighed and rubbed the bruises with her other hand. Sleeping was the last thing she had wanted to do a few minutes ago. Now, the thought made her restless with anticipation. 

She smiled at the irony and stared out the window. The sky was already darkening, and her head was still buzzing around her. She lay down on her pillow and watched the fire in her lantern slowly go out, and by the time it had died down to embers, she was drifting off to places unknown.


	4. Dreams

An arrow whizzed by her head and hit its mark deep in the shoulder of the man next to her. She caught him as he fell, and when he looked at her he saw a comrade and a friend. “I’m sorry,” she said, but he gripped her shoulder with the last of his strength to stop her.

“Go,” he sputtered. “Go and…” his words turned to gurgling coughs, then blood, then nothing. She laid him down on the ground.

A monster came up from behind, but she launched herself off the ground into its stomach and knocked it back into another two of them. She pulled herself off and swung her hammer and took their heads clean off. Another came at her from the side and she butted it with the end of her hammer and it stumbled backwards over the body of one of its friends. She climbed on top and cleaved his head straight in half. 

She turned to find another to butcher, but they were backing away from her. She let herself breathe for the first time since the monsters had flanked their squadron. She thought of chasing them, but there was something she needed to take care of. The battle was done and the dead should be buried.

She turned solemnly to her comrade.

There were no bodies and no blood, only an elf, watching her with a peculiar expression. What was an elf doing on this battlefield at such a time…?

_An elf…_

Reality hit Lux like a brick. “Solas,” she exclaimed. 

He looked rather bemused at her disorientation. “You’re noticing me more quickly, _lethallin._ I’m impressed.”

She looked down at her body. It morphed in front of her eyes, first a human’s, then her own, then a red mass, a shade, an abomination, one of the monsters she’d killed. She was the last of her squadron. So many men killed on her watch and she was busy with this _elf_ , this _girl_ , these _dreams_ when what mattered was the War. 

But what war…? She remembered the battles that killed her squadron, but she also remembered an ancient throne, a ruined castle, and something else too, a mark on her hand. 

The thoughts made everything spin, and she reached out for Solas. “Hold onto yourself,” he instructed. “Keep yourself close, but do not let go of the others either. You do not have to be just one at once. Calm yourself.”

The world began to slow. She caught her bearings. For a moment, she was calm. 

Then there was a jolt, and she fell into his arms. It knocked him off-guard and sent the world into a tailspin, and they reeled together for one moment, flying and falling through the sky.

And then she was in her castle with thousands of spirits, peeling off their skin with the mark on her hand. She stood from the throne and they bowed to her, and she made them stand and they were the Inquisition, and she stood above them atop a ruin triumphant.

Lux woke up. 

She sat up in her bed. She felt rested, but somehow exhausted at the same time--her muscles felt like they should have been aching, but they weren’t. 

It was the fourth night she’d woken up from one of Solas’s dreams. He was right--she became lucid more quickly now than she had at first. On the first night, she woke up gasping and grabbing for her axe, briefly unsure of who or where she was. On Solas’s part, he was patient with her, and she never let him see how much it disturbed her, but she knew that under his patience and slow talks through her moments of panic in the Fade, he maintained an interest that was almost experimental. He wanted to see what she would do. 

She wondered if he was impressed. 

She prepared herself some tea and sat down at her desk. There came a knock at the door--breakfast. “Come in,” she called.

It was Solas, carrying a small plate of fruit and cheese. “I thought we might eat together.”

She smiled. “Sure.”

She wolfed down half of the plate wordlessly--the Fade made her hungry, it seemed--and stared longingly at his remaining food when she was done. He gestured for her to have what was left. 

He ate little, and with the same clinical interest with which he watched her in the Fade--like he didn’t have to, but was curious about the taste.

She smiled as she finished off the last of the cheese. “Can you tell me another story of the Fade?”

“I believe I’ve told you the most interesting ones already.”

“Do you think I could ever see them like you can?”

He leaned back in his seat and thought a moment. “It is impossible to know at this point. You are not magically inclined, so it is far more difficult for you to maintain a lucid state in the Fade… but with practice, perhaps. Last night was certainly promising.”

“It sounds incredible. To walk in the footsteps of giants…”

“You will not have to follow the footsteps of others to make a mark, lethallin,” he reminded her.

“I know.” With her ankle, there were moments when she forgot that she was still the Herald. But her strength was coming back, and with it came thoughts of the Inquisition’s next step. “Cassandra and Cullen are pushing for us to make a deal with the Templars.”

His face darkened. “Is that so?”

“I know what you’re going to say,” she interjected. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

“And why is that?”

“I want to help the mages, but Cullen and Cassandra make good points. The Templars are a trained army, and they won’t take kindly to us if we come to them with a thousand apostates at our backs. Nor will the rest of Thedas, I imagine.”

“So you would sacrifice the long-term safety of thousands for the security of an organization that may only exist for another few months?”

She bristled at his words. “Don’t bait me.” 

He only watched her, his face ice cold. She met his eyes for a sharp moment, but cold won over the heat of her anger and she sighed. “I want to do what I believe is right, but if I reach too far, I could lose everything. If they distrust me as a leader, what will I accomplish but another prison sentence?” 

“And what will you accomplish if you do the wrong things in order to maintain power?”

“I’ll still save the world. Isn’t that enough?”

“You cannot afford to think in terms of what is enough.”

That gave her pause. “So what do I do if they resent my decisions?”

“You bear their hate and continue doing what you must.” 

She leaned back in her chair and looked at him long and hard.   
He was right, of course. But the last part…  
“I see.”  
She stretched her arms out in front of her, then stood and walked to the fireplace.   
“Would you like some tea?”

“Lux, your leg…”

“It’s been better since yesterday.”

She couldn’t help but crack a smile at the look he gave her in response: first confusion, then realization, frustration and finally begrudging acceptance, all in a moment as he thought her through. Her triumphant expression couldn’t have helped. “Did you need more time to think? Or were you ever thinking of approaching the Templars first?”

“Yes and no.” She poured herself another cup of tea. She didn’t ask him again if he wanted some--she would have used a better pretense to get up if she’d only thought of one in time. He watched her do that too. “I won’t be remembered as a regressive tyrant, and I won’t waste this chance to make the world better. But I can’t let myself feel bad either, when the time comes, when people start to die.” She took a long sip. The tea was saccharine and thick with honey. The energy would help for the journey to the Hinterlands.

“So why deceive me?” His posture hardly changed, but his eyes betrayed how burned he still was. 

“I needed your honest opinion, Solas. I value your counsel, and you give very good counsel when you’re trying to convince me of things.”

“Is that the only reason?”

She wondered what he was looking for with that answer. Did he want to be angrier at her? Or just hear the truth? And how should she respond? More to the point, what was the truth?  
“Maybe not,” she decided. “But it’s the most important one. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” She left it at that. There was no way she was going to apologize.

He glared at her a moment, then seemed to make a decision, because his expression softened and his shoulders slacked ever so slightly. “I am glad you respect my opinion.” 

She relaxed perhaps more than she should have. “That’s good.” She finished her tea and stood again. “Will you be coming to Redcliffe? I’ll be bringing the Tevinter mage and Cassandra, if I can convince her this isn’t a terrible idea.”

“She is loyal to the Inquisition. She will accompany you regardless of how she feels about it.”

“Of course. But I think you’re wrong on that front.” She pulled on her jacket and began lacing up her boots. “I’m not going to bear their hate. If it kills me, I’ll make them agree with me.” 

That made him smile in a way that confused her. It was too sad to be amused, but not upset enough to be contemptuous… she settled on nostalgic. She wanted to ask about it, but he stood up before she could say something. 

“I wish you luck in that endeavor, _lethallin._ ” He gathered the plates and walked to the door. “I’ll meet you at the Chantry in an hour.”

“Solas, wait.” It came out more flustered than she intended.

“Yes?”

“I know I’ve recovered now, but maybe sometime you could show me the Fade again.” The words hung awkwardly in the air. “If it isn’t an inconvenience, I mean.”

He thought about it for a moment. Then he smiled. “Perhaps after we close the Breach, we can make another attempt. I suspect you’ll be busy until then.”

He took his leave as she finished lacing up her boots. Her ankle felt as good as new, almost as good as the mark on her hand. She pulled on a cloak and headed towards the Chantry, bracing herself for the ire of her advisors.


	5. Close

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux closes the Breach. Partying ensues.

The night Lux closed the Breach, she felt as if she was made of fire. She’d become used to the feeling of power and lightness that came with closing Rifts, but the moment the Breach was closed, she felt so powerful that it was like she could move mountains. It was intoxicating. 

She decided to feel a little more intoxicated that night, and so when the celebrations started she had Josephine bring out a few barrels of mulled wine from the stores. She could have sworn the soldiers liked her more for that than for closing the Breach, but that was probably the buzz talking. 

She was standing to the side of the excitement, sipping her ale and wondering how much she’d need to get up the courage to dance with the others, when she felt a pat on the back.

“Great party. It’s almost as if we’ve solved everything.”

She smiled at Dorian. “Let them have their fun.”

“Oh, I intend to, but I also intend to have more of it than them.” 

Two of the soldiers were in the midst of a drinking contest. One of them overshot and his wine came out in a spout straight to the other one’s face. The camp erupted in laughter.

“An arduous task, to be sure,” she said. 

“After our time traveling, demon slaying escapades, I am more than up to it.” He went to join up with the Iron Bull and his chargers, and ostensibly to flirt the pants off of someone, but he turned back at the last moment. “I know you’re busy looking over your handiwork, but you really should join us,” he said. “You do deserve fun too.”

She couldn’t think of something witty that wasn’t self-deprecating, so she settled with honest and flattered. “Okay. Thank you.”

She wandered to a table where Cassandra was sitting rather red-faced with one sleeve rolled up in the midst of several disgruntled soldiers and an empty cup. “Lux, you are just in time!” she said. “These men here think I cannot possibly be the strongest in the camp, and now you are the only one left they want me to challenge. So come, let’s prove them wrong.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I think my actions in the field have proven my strength many times over.”

A couple of the soldiers whooped, and Cassandra frowned, at first trying to recall (with some difficulty) what Lux was talking about, then at Lux herself. “I believe the rage demon near Redcliffe would speak differently.”

“The one that got me from behind on a sprained ankle?” Lux scoffed. “How about the army of bandits on the storm coasts? They didn’t seem to think you were that strong, but I didn’t have time to ask them, I was too busy charging them off the cliffs.”

“They only surrounded me because you had your head in a chest looking for some worthless elven trinket!” 

“I thought maybe you’d be able to handle yourself without your elven sidekick for once, but I guess I was wrong, _Seeker._ ”

“We settle this. _Now._ ” Cassandra kicked the chair opposite her so as to push it out for Lux, but she overshot and it fell into the fire. There was one heavy, nervous moment among the soldiers. Then one of them snorted with laughter, and the group burst into laughter all at once as the chair burst into flames. Lux and Cassandra joined them. 

When they all calmed down, Cassandra nodded at Lux. “I misjudged you.”

The sentiment surprised her. “Oh, that’s alright,” she stammered. “It really is.” 

Behind the group of soldiers, sitting back on the walls away from the noise, she spotted Solas. She nodded once more at the solders and excused herself. 

“Do not worry about me,” he said when she approached. “I’m content here watching.”

“I’m not worried.” She sat next to him. “It’s nice to see everyone in a good mood.” When the mages first arrived, you could cut the tension with a knife, but now she saw mages mingling with Cullen’s soldiers. 

“It seems you have been successful so far.”

She turned to him ready for one of his testing looks, but found mostly encouragement, to her surprise. Mostly. 

“The morning after this will be the real test. If they can survive the hangover together, I’ll call it a victory.”

“What do you plan to do after this is over? You must realize they will want to go home now that the immediate threat has been resolved.”

“Perhaps some of them will be able to.”

“You are not uncomfortable with losing the momentum you’ve built up these few weeks?”

It was a good question, and admittedly one Lux hadn’t thought of much. The sounds of happy soldiers and the warm wine on her tongue deterred her from thinking about it much more. Instead, she found herself thinking about Solas’s tongue, wondering how warm it was. She leaned closer to him. He saw her approach and looked intrigued. Hopefully a little more than intrigued. 

Lux smiled at that. “For now, I’m just comfortable with…”  
There was another sound behind the soldiers, something that didn’t belong there. Solas heard it too. She turned around to find Cullen running towards them. “Lux, there is a force approaching from the mountain. We need to ready the soldiers.”

She dropped her ale.


	6. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buried under the ruins of Haven, Lux meets with her past, present and future.

The respite in the fighting would last only a minute. Lux drew her hammer out of the skull of a Templar, and then checked on her companions. They were safe. They were waiting for her. She breathed a sigh of relief. 

She heard the beating of wings. Her stomach dropped when she saw the silhouette in the sky. 

She turned to Solas. “Go.” 

“Lux…”

“Now!” She saw him turn and run after Cassandra and Dorian. She turned back around just in time to see the dragon in her face, heaving fire that melted the snow around her feet. 

\--

The sun seared her skin hot and cold all at once, and she was a child in the forests again, seeking out patches of sunlight to burn herself in. 

_I am so sorry, Da’len._

She felt her mother’s arms around her again. It was only yesterday and it was a lifetime ago, and she made to reach out for her, but something stopped her arms from working. It was mother. She was holding her down. You have to go, Lux. Why, when everything was so warm? 

_You have to go, or you’ll freeze._

Lux awoke with a gasp and her lungs took in snow.

All at once she was a panicking tangle of limbs and coughing and choked out cries for help. She was pinned under debris. The heat she felt was a burn from the cold, from the snow that had soaked through her armour and into her bones.

She pushed her hand under the debris and pointed her palm outwards. She remembered closing the Breach, threading light through holes in the world, closing the Breach and lighting herself on fire.

She pushed with everything she had, and a burst of light pulled the snow and wood into another world. 

Lux fell forward to her knees and gasped desperately for air. Her lungs fought to cough out the snow, but every heave made her ribs spark with pain. When they worked well enough to breathe, she forced herself to her feet. 

She was in a cavern walled with snow and ice. It was about a third of the size of her cabin, just tall enough to stand in, and there were no exits. 

And she was _so, so cold._

_I am so sorry, Da’len. I’ve left you alone._

Her mother’s words hurt more than her broken ribs, their truth most of all. She was alone, and she was going to die alone, pre-buried and forgotten in this cave. 

She bit back her tears. Her legs gave out from under her and she sat clutching herself, trying to fit her arms around herself like her mother had all those years and just a minute ago.

She curled up on her side and waited. 

_I tried so hard, mamae. I tried to get out. Is this what happens?_

_Not always, Da’len. But often._

She clutched herself harder. _I should have done better. I should have…_

_You did what you could. They’ll remember your sacrifice. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted--to be remembered?_

Lux saw herself now, staring at her from the dark and the snow: the Herald of Andraste, sitting up straight in her saddle. Riding to her glorious death.

 _I will not be another Elven martyr._ She said that once, but now that she was at the threshold, the idea was comforting. The woman on the horse turned from her and rode away. 

She was at the Conclave again, lying awake at night staring at the ceiling. She went through scenarios in her head to pass the time, imaginary adventures in which she shook the world with her heroics. She made a mark on the world. And then she died. Always, in every one without fail, she died. 

_You did it. I’m so proud._

Lux was so tired that she let herself cry a little. The tears were so warm she wanted to disappear into them. She was so tired.

_Lux, come now. Quickly._

She saw a figure made of light. It was her Keeper, it was Andraste, it was the Divine, it was Solas.

 _Quickly._ She pushed desperately against the ground until finally she peeled herself off of it. Her ribs hurt so much. 

_Lux,_ it said again. It was gone, but the lightness was in the walls now, she only had to find it. She pressed her hand into the wall and pushed as far as she could. Too heavy. She hugged the wall and pressed her hand into it until her hand was numb to the electricity coursing through it. 

She dug as deep as she could into the wall and pushed through it with another pull of light. When it all settled, there was a path ahead.

She looked back into the tent at her mother’s body.

_I’ve left you alone._

“Da’len, we must keep moving. We will put her on an aravel and put her out into the water, but that is the best we can do without the Shemlen from the village finding us. I apologize, but you must follow my orders.”

_You left me alone as well._

She pushed the tent flap open and she was in a chamber with a Rift. She didn’t see the Shade until it was on her. She meant to charge it but she slipped at the last moment and tumbled onto it as it grabbed at her neck. Her windpipe cut off. She flailed her fists in front of her until she found its face, and then she pounded and pounded until it was a wisp of energy floating back into the hole in the world. 

She ripped off a plate from her armour and struck into another Shade with the sharpest edge until it cracked under her. Then she rolled onto her back and tugged at the Rift until it closed and enveloped her again in darkness. 

She lay back in the mud and hoped the Keeper wouldn’t hear her. It had been nothing but fighting since she’d last run off to the village, and now the clan was packing the Aravels. 

_I don’t want to leave._

She resorted to being sullen and lazy under the tree, covering herself in mud, trying to meld in with the earth until it enveloped her and forced her to stay. 

But now the mud was colder than it should be. 

_We must keep moving._

_You must keep moving._

She rolled onto her side and clutched her chest with one hand as she dragged herself to her feet. She kept the armour plate close to her, and with her free hand reached out in front of her until she felt the wall. 

She limped around the room like that, pushing, nudging for a weak point, hoping for a path out. But there was nothing. Everything hurt. 

_Please end the pain. Please._

She remembered hearing that from someone far away. 

The ice was porcelain now, and she was back in her kingdom, sitting on her throne. The spirits were gone; it was empty. She willed them back with her memories, but all she could get were wisps.

She remembered being Queen once, standing at the top of a hill with thousands cheering for her.

_Carve your own path, Da’len. Promise me._

She dreamed of it, once. Maybe dreaming was the best she could do.  
She leaned back against the wall.

 _Dreaming._ She thought of Solas.

She thought of dreaming with him, of their mornings together, of his cool hands and steady shoulders. She thought of Dorian, worrying for her even though he hardly knew her. She thought of Cassandra’s guilt, of her companions raising glasses at the party, of feeling for the first time in so long like she didn’t have to run away. 

_Come rest now, Da’len. You’ve done all you’ve wanted. I’m so proud of you._

She pushed away her mother’s arms and turned towards the wall. “I’m sorry, mamae. I have to stay… I have to--“

She drove both hands into the wall and pushed with her mark until the earth shook. The quake knocked her off her feet and she fell to the side. When she staggered back to her feet, there was light.

_Carve your own path._

And so she did, through feet of snow in the light of the half-moon. 

_I will do as you say, mamae, but I will not do it alone._

In the dim light she saw how her vision faded in and out. The dark made everything feel real, but now she knew that she was hardly able to keep herself awake. Yet even when she fell unconscious she would not stop walking. 

_I will not be alone. I cannot be alone._

She saw something flickering in the distance and pushed herself forwards. Her legs gave out and she tumbled into the snow. She tore off her armour plate by plate and stood back up and forced herself to take another step. The world went black again and then light and then black and she saw the flickering again, only it was in front of her, and then there were footsteps. 

She called out to them. What came out was a groan--but it was enough. 

“She’s alive!” It was Cassandra’s voice. They ran to her, and in her relief she collapsed into Cullen’s arms a mess of tears and laughter.


	7. Warm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux wakes up at the Inquisition's camp in the mountains to find the Inquisition, and Solas, in dire straits.

She awoke to the feeling of cool electricity on her stomach. It was Solas’s magic--it was familiar enough to her by now that she recognized it.

“Hey.” Her voice was still weak.

“Hello.” She lifted her head to look at him. His hands were pressed on her ribs, his expression quietly focused. The sight made her smile, and in her state there was little she could do to stop it. 

He saw her looking and lifted his hands. “Don’t strain yourself,” he said, rolling up a blanket next to them and tucking it under her head. “You need to rest.”

“So much resting lately. I’m sick of it.” She strained to get up, but Solas’s hands were on her again and his magic flowed through her, and she found herself unable to. 

“We’ll be on the move again as soon as you are able to walk,” he said, “but until then, you need to let your body recover.” He stood and looked around the tent, probably for some medicine to put her to sleep and stop her from re-injuring herself.

She grabbed the leg of his pant. “Can you stay?”

“Hmm?”

“I can’t be alone.” She hated how desperate she was, how weak she was. Her words came out defeated and bitter. “Please. Not again.” 

She braced herself for his judgment, but instead he returned to his knees beside her and took her hand. “Of course.”

“Thank you.”

She felt suddenly exhausted. Was it the magic, or relief? Either way, she drifted off until all she could feel of her body was her hand, clinging to his across the Veil.

\--

Moving around was invigorating after so long on her back, and for the first time in a while Lux’s ribs weren’t aching. The cold still stung at her more than she would have liked, though--she wrapped her cloak tighter around her shoulders and hunched closer to the Veilfire, though it gave off only the slightest hint of heat.

Solas stared out off the cliffs with his hands behind his back, frowning. 

The orb was Elven. 

Somehow, the news didn’t shock her--not because of some deep knowledge of Elven culture, but because things were just starting to go well. 

She crossed her arms. “They trust me implicitly,” she said, looking back down the hill towards the camp. “I am their champion. I have to believe that I can sway them.”

“Faith tends to make martyrs of its champions,” Solas noted. 

“I will be no martyr,” she reminded him. The wind picked up and blew right threw her cloak, straight to her bones. She clenched her fists to warm herself, and remembered feeling like fire once, long ago and far away.

The pain in her ribs returned a little, and she had to relax to stop it from coming back. She sighed. “This is all assuming we survive the week. Our stores are running out, and this blizzard isn’t showing any signs of stopping. And we have nowhere to go…”

“I may have a solution in that regard,” he said. 

She raised her eyebrows. “You what?”

“In my journeys in the Fade I came across a ruined castle, lost to the memory of maps. It will be a long march for several days, but we may be able to make it. Skyhold, they call it.”

“I’ve heard of it.” A desperate pilgrimage to a legendary ruin, hidden in the mountains… it was the kind of story that became myth. “If you lead us there, you’ll be hailed the hero of the Inquisition.”

“Which is why you must be the one to lead.”

She stared into his eyes, searching for some deception or test, but they were earnest and grave. 

_The queen of a ruined kingdom._ She straightened herself, looked back down at the camp. _Atop a ruin, triumphant._ “I dreamed of this.” 

He nodded. “I remember.” The thought of him in her dream made her heart jolt, though she wasn’t precisely sure why.

“Do you think I was chosen?” she asked quietly. 

“In a metaphysical sense? It’s impossible to know. But if you were chosen by chance?” He looked her over. “There are certainly far worse choices.”

“My mother always thought I was destined for greater things than my clan could give me.” 

“Did you disagree?”

She smiled to herself. “Not at all.” The memory of her mother gave her chills, like she was back in the cave. But she was tired of being cold, tired of running away, tired of being alone. She stepped forward into the light of the Veilfire and loosened her cloak. She felt an intensity come over her, like roots of a tree burying themselves in her and growing up her spine, grounding and strengthening her resolve. 

She met Solas’s gaze. “I swear on all the Gods in the heavens and below that I will not waste this opportunity. The Inquisition will change the course of history, and I will be the force that drives it.”

“That may be a difficult promise to keep.”

“Then I will rise to the challenge.”  
He smiled at her. “You continue to surprise me, Lux. Or should I call you Inquisitor.”

 _Inquisitor._ The title suited her.


	8. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux and Solas lead the Inquisition to Skyhold.

They rousted the camp at first light. Lux brought the idea to her advisors, with Solas silent at her side. Cullen questioned how they knew it was even real, and Josephine preferred the relative stability of approaching her noble friends, but none could deny the power the story would give them. So they agreed. Each of them, along with the other companions, took charge of a section of their hodgepodge of refugees, horses, soldiers and mages; and Lux and Solas led them. 

She made sure never to walk behind him; he spoke to her in Elven when he needed to tell her which way forward, and she would straighten herself up, jog a few steps ahead of him, and make a grand gesture in the right way. When they stopped for rests she toured the camps while Solas aided in tending to the wounded. Four people died on the journey, and Lux stood foremost among the funeral parties, though she never spoke. 

Sometimes their companions would walk with them and keep them company, if the masses behind them were handling themselves well enough. 

Cole followed Solas like a child after a parent, watching his steps and asking him strangely worded questions that Lux didn’t understand, but that made Solas smile. 

Sometimes he approached Lux, but only for short bursts before returning to Solas’s side or to the pilgrims behind them.  
At first she was bothered by the strange way he spoke, and it seemed like they were communicating in different languages. Then, on the second day while Solas was distracted by a question from Cassandra, Cole lowered his voice and took her hand. “I lowered you into the water,” he said. “Left alone, both of us. But I will not be buried. A pang in the chest, knotted into wood. And yet it grows.”  
She didn’t know what to say. At first he was confused at her silence, then disappointed, but she squeezed his hand. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, exactly. I understand. Thank you.” He smiled. 

Dorian traded jokes and jabs with Lux at first; after a time, though, he seemed to calm his nerves, and asked her about her clan and her people with a fascination only possible from someone so clueless. Solas bristled at his lines of questioning at first, but Lux rather enjoyed them, and found herself relaxing into a pattern of jokes at the expense of her clan that only she fully comprehended, comments about her Keeper’s stupid nose or the way the Aravels made so little sense that she occasionally refused to carry them on that basis. Still, Dorian seemed to understand her sentiment, and they laughed together. Solas smiled to himself.

Cassandra mostly walked with them silently, just slightly behind them. At first Lux thought she was still suspicious of them, so she tried to carry on conversations with Solas as normally as possible while resisting the urge to snap at her. But after a couple of hours, she realized Cassandra was more likely just unsure of what to say. Lux smiled at this. “Tell me about the Seekers,” she prompted, looking at her over her shoulder.

Cassandra relaxed a little and stepped forward next to Lux. “What would you like to know?”

“Start from the beginning. I know very little of your order.”

The formality fell away in short order, and soon Cassandra felt comfortable starting their conversations. 

She was in the middle of a conversation with Iron Bull when Solas touched her lightly on the shoulder.

“We are nearly there,” he said under his breath.  
She nodded and turned back to Bull. “You’ll have to excuse me.”  
“No problem, bas.” 

She ran ahead a few steps up the hill. At first, all she saw were the sharp tips of the castle’s highest towers, and the steep hill made moving forward impossible. She circled around until she found a way barely treadable enough. Solas watched from the top of the hill as she led. She moved as steadily as she could, but for a brief moment her excitement got the better of her and she slipped on some ice under the snow.

But she caught her feet. More importantly, she caught them without falling; she turned the momentum of the slip into a leap and landed gracefully enough on flat ground. She straightened herself and looked up.

And there it was: Skyhold. It looked less a ruin than a mirage emerging from the Beyond itself. 

She turned around in time to see the others come over the hill, so that they saw her looking up at them and the castle behind her. 

She imagined the sight woven in tapestries and painted on the walls of castles. 

Solas followed in her footsteps down the hill and joined her. He smiled at her, but his expression was heavy--the future already weighed on his mind, as it always did. She found herself compelled to ease his burden, if only a little. 

She touched his arm and met his gaze as he turned to her, trying to conceal his feelings with limited success. She smiled. “Thank you, Solas.”

The words lit up his face with worry and uncertainty and tentative hope, all at once. Briefly, she lost sight of the others coming over the hill; she allowed herself, for a single moment, to be Lux. He recognized the gesture, but seemed unsure of how to take it. 

But it was only a moment. She pushed her shoulders back and strode ahead of him, finding solid footing across the ancient roads into her clan’s new home.


	9. Protection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux gets a sick new axe and embarrasses Solas in the process.

The Qunari picked Lux up like a ragdoll and threw her against the far column. The force of her against it sent a crack up the ancient stone. Lux, however, was in better shape. She landed on her feet, found an archer next to him and charged him into the wall, cracking his ribs with the force of her body. The blow took the wind out of him and she threw him on the groundand stabbed him straight through with her sword.

She took out another archer with a blow to the back, then returned her focus to the Qunari, now the last of his sordid crew of cocksure bandits. 

He had Solas pinned to the wall. The elf was defending himself adequately enough, but the barrier he’d erected wouldn’t last long, and the Qunari shook off the fire Solas threw at him with some ease. Solas was calm as usual, but he looked like he was calculating his options and coming up with little.

Lux took off at a running start and leapt up onto the Qunari’s shoulders, driving her sword into his back on her way up. The sword barely made an impact, but her fingers into his sockets gave her a more gratifying response. He screeched and stumbled over, and she wrenched his axe from his grasp and bore it down on his face. He fell to the ground. 

She fell off of him and sat down on the ground. When Solas and Dorian approached her, she held up the axe. It was a deep and shining crimson, razor-sharp and frighteningly beautiful. “I think I’ll use this one,” she said, wiping the blood off its surface and finding a reflection of her face in the red steel. She was covered in blood as well--she tried to wipe it off with her bloody hands and did little but smear it around.

“Remind me again why we accepted this Qunari’s ridiculous challenge?” Dorian asked, poking around one of the corpses and finding nothing of note.

“After everything at Haven, I needed something to hit,” she answered as she stood up. Iron Bull laughed heartily in approval. “I also figured he’d have a nicer weapon than the standard-issue Inquisition brand. Clearly, I was right.” She hooked it onto her back. It fit rather well for a Qunari blade.

“There’s also the matter of the hostages,” Solas reminded her.

“Of course,” she said, a little defensively. The thing about the axe was mostly tongue-in-cheek, after all. Mostly. She found the key on the Qunari’s body and unlocked the prison door. In a flash she was the Inquisitor again, all good posture and formality and well-wishes to the thankful scouts. They called her _your worship_ before getting on their way. Lux liked that. 

Dorian and Iron Bull chatted a little bit ahead, leaving Lux with Solas, who was still a little apprehensive. “You know I didn’t forget about the hostages,” she said. “I’m glad to be out here, but I would never lose sight of my tasks.”

“That is not the issue,” Solas said quietly. “You risked your safety protecting me, when I did not need your help.”

“Oh, that?” She searched his face for a clue as to why that bothered him, but found little. “It’s not that I think you need to be protected. I just feel stronger when I protect those I care about.” 

“Is that a common sentiment among the Dalish?”

The comment stung more than she expected. “Not for me, it wasn’t,” she answered sharply. “If you don’t want me to help you in the future, I won’t.”

“No,” he said, his tone softening. “I didn’t mean to insult you. I only hope you do not endanger yourself on my behalf.” 

“Your concern is flattering,” she responded with a smile, “but I can’t make any guarantees.” 

Seeing that she wouldn’t be moved on this point, he accepted defeat and changed the subject. “Now that we have settled into Skyhold, perhaps we could have another dream together.”

The suggestion caught her by surprise, but before she could respond, Iron Bull shouted for her from up ahead. “Looks like more zombies, bas.”

She turned back to Solas, but he already knew her answer, so she unhooked the axe from its place on her back and stepped forward. “Let’s see what this thing can do.”


	10. Haven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux and Solas dream together again. This is where it gets steamy.

She began as formless.

The first part of her that took shape was her hand, scarred with jagged green marks here, cracking at the seams and sharp enough to tear out the seams that loomed in the air.

Her body grew out from there in larger and larger fragments until she was her whole self, standing in a thick darkness. That self began to drift towards other selves and stories and worlds, but she remembered his words. Keep yourself close. 

He took his place beside her and in an instant everything was palpable. They were in Haven. She was Lux, as much as in the daytime. Her hand was no longer breaking apart; she could feel her skin as smooth and unbroken as in her waking body.

“How did you do this?” she asked. A snowflake landed on her finger and melted from perfect symmetry into formless mass. “All of this is so real…”

“The Fade is equal parts reality and imagination,” Solas explained. “With some discipline, I can shape it. With more, I can make it into this.” He gestured to the houses, the Chantry, the empty camps, all perfectly detailed. “Making this was not difficult. I needed only draw from my memory… and yours.”

“You’re in my mind?” the thought frightened her and it thrilled her. 

“The Fade opens us all up to some extent. I did not have to reach in, only to peek and copy what I found.”

“And what did you find?”

He took her hand and they were falling, but that couldn’t have been right, because they were on the ground in the prison.

“I sat by you here while you lay unconscious, researching the mark on your hand. Do you remember?”

“I do.” She felt her hand in his own, felt his electricity, the relief from the pain. She lay on the cold floor next to him as she stood watching the empty prison halls. She rolled to one side and reached out for him in her sleep. 

Please, she mumbled. Please.

The mark flared up and she cried out. The pain, please…

“You begged me to end your life,” he said.

She remembered someone doing that, far away in another body. Another Lux.  
“You must have thought very little of me,” she said. They watched her writhe on the ground as Solas gripped her wrist and poured magic inside until she calmed a little.

“I thought you would not live the night. But you persevered, to our great surprise.” He turned away from her and looked at her, curious and suddenly brave. “You haven’t ceased to surprise me since then.”

She found herself drawn closer to him. 

_Come now_ , she heard, and lying on the ground, came to a brief moment of consciousness. _Quickly._ He was speaking to her, his voice low with concern, tenderness, something melancholy she couldn’t place. Guilt?

He pressed his hand into her palm and brought a jolt of magic into her. She was no longer in her kingdom; she was running up a mountain and all was dark.

“I remember hearing those words,” she said. “I was going to stay in that palace, but I heard them and I followed them. It was you.”

He gazed at her mournfully, and she saw that he was back there as well, looking down at her body and speaking to her, saying something, anything she might hear.   
It was a last resort. “You were dying.”

She wanted to get out of this place, out of her dying body. She pressed her hands into his and he understood. 

They were atop the hills overlooking the town. It was beautiful and peaceful and it was burning and it was a pile of rubble.

“I almost fled,” he said over the crackling of the fire. “I thought perhaps if I hid as far from the Breach as I could, I might discover a way to stop it in time.” He turned to her. “I left. I waited for the right moment to take my leave. But then--“

Thread through a hole in the sky, and a seed in her stomach, taking root and growing. His hands on hers again, guiding her, coursing through her.

“I felt the whole world change.”

She looked into his eyes. He could have been telling her story as well as his own. She wanted to tell him, but this was the Fade, and so instead she showed him--she took his hand in both of hers and they moved in a second through a hallway at night and the caverns under Haven, and before she could stop them they moved through haybails on the farm, through muddy ponds in the forest, to the cliffs overlooking Skyhold with him next to her, him, always him. 

“I felt it too,” she said. 

She pulled his hand around her waist and cradled his cheek and kissed him. His lips were like his fingers--cool and electric and curious. His hand retreated from her waist and hovered in the air.

She pulled back and found him conflicted. Perhaps she’d overstepped her bounds. She turned away.

His fingers were all over her now, tugging at her and pulling her into him and exploring, and he was no longer cool but as searingly hot as the burning town all around them that shifted into a thousand fires across space and time. 

She grasped on to his neck and his shoulders and tried to find solid footing. He brought his arm across her waist and held her and again the ground shifted under them, but she couldn’t feel the ground or the sky or anything but his tongue in her mouth and her hands on his skin. Her mark crackled with electricity against his chest and the feeling reverberated between them, closing the gap between their bodies. 

He pulled away, but in desperation, not reluctance. His eyes were all heat now; she pressed her lips against his and he gave in again and held her closer.

She pulled away this time and waited for him. He kissed her again and again and once more, but more softly as they landed back in Haven, daylight now, not burning but as serene as when she first found it, her first home after her clan.

Finally he found his reluctance and pulled away from her, but it seemed he could not bring himself to completely separate. And so they remained like that, holding each other and in a holding pattern, unable to come together and yet attached.

Lux found her feet and steadied herself. She wanted to say something, but somehow in that moment speaking felt like intruding. 

He allowed them one more moment and then withdrew his hands, and there it was again, the rift between them Lux hadn’t noticed so palpably until now. 

“We shouldn’t,” he said. “Not even here.”

She wanted to close that distance so badly that the world around them seemed to pull her towards him. She stepped back. “I should go, then.” The shifting of the ground underneath them contradicted her words, and this only seemed to make him want her more. 

“Let us talk about this later,” he said, and with a broad gesture of his hands, Haven was gone. “Perhaps when you _wake up._ ”

\--

Lux woke up to find her body just as taken with him in the waking world as it had been in the Fade. What had once been a friendly curiosity, perhaps in the back of her mind a mentorship, had bloomed all at once into a stammering in her chest that wouldn’t let up. She took her breakfast alone on her balcony and stared out at each peak in turn in a desperate attempt to look at anything other than her bed. 

She found herself pacing a few minutes later, the peaks still in her mind’s eye while she stared at the floor. She thought of going out and killing something, doing some heroic deeds, making herself visible to the world and forgetting about what had happened. 

But to get out there, she had to pass by his atrium, and what would he think if she didn’t say something? Would he think she was too weak and nervous to approach him head-on? Or would he assume she wasn’t interested?

 _Was_ she interested? _He said we shouldn’t,_ she reminded herself. Her interest may not matter. She wouldn’t push.

But it was impossibly hard not to push, especially since she got the sense that if she did, he would yield.

She resolved to try. With newfound determination, she held her heart down and strode down the stairs and across the main hall. Being the Inquisitor calmed her nerves and she tucked her hands behind her back and brought her shoulders back and down. 

The posture reminded her of him, and reflexively her hands fell to her sides. She hurried to the atrium.

She found him perched on a ladder, his hands stained with paint. The vista below him was immediately recognizable: Haven in flames and a dark figure holding an orb between two spindly hands. Of course she knew the scene the fresco evoked, but what shook her was the familiarity of the image--she had seen it before, perhaps in a dream. Had she peeked in to his mind as well, albeit inadvertently? What else had she seen that she couldn’t recall on waking? 

She turned to him as he climbed down from the ladder. He was wearing a different tunic; this one was splattered with paint and slightly looser than the one he wore around Skyhold. She caught a glimpse of a droplet of paint on his collarbone. 

He saw her staring and looked at her smugly, like a cat that had just caught a mouse. Before the look might have made her defensive, but now it flustered her.

“Sleep well?” he asked. His voice was more suggestive than she’d anticipated.  
This was a test too, she realized, but of a different sort. She met his eyes and his challenge.


	11. Judgment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux makes her first judgment, and Solas approves.

The Inquisitor sat back in her throne and leaned her head on her hand. The throne was large for her, but she sat it well, her legs wide to make herself look big and her shoulders broad and proud.

The congregation before her was smaller than she would’ve liked, but this was only her first judgment; soon, she promised herself, crowds would fill the room to hear her speak. For now, the first step was to give her sentence.

“Alexius,” she said, tilting her chin up so she looked down her nose at the man before her. His hands were shackled with metal that dulled his magic, and his eyes were cast downwards. He had made his shame clear to the court. A harsh sentence would be too much, and a bad precedent to set… but she could not abide pardoning someone who had planned to cause so much suffering. 

“The Inquisition is merciful,” she began. “We recognize your actions as those of a father desperate to save his beloved son. We accept your remorse.” She leaned forward and gripped the arms of her throne. “That being said, I cannot forgive that you would put the children of others into chains to help your own. To pardon you in such circumstances would be an injustice to all those you subjugated.”

He lowered his head. “So what is your judgment?”

The corners of her lips curled upwards, but she stopped short of smiling. “Our mage allies find themselves short on custodians. I have recommended you for the job. You will wash their floors, serve their food and obey their orders. Perhaps in time, when you have learned to value the lives of the people you enslaved, we will reconsider your sentence.”

His face fell--perhaps he was holding onto hope that he might see Felix--but he nodded. “I understand. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.”

She rose and nodded to the guards, who took him to his new place among the mages. The crowd dispersed. As they were leaving, she noticed Solas among them. Was he still in the midst of his considerations? She had made her intentions known, but she was determined not to push, as tempting as it was. Instead, she’d been cordial and curious with him in the week since their conversations, but occupied most of her time training with Cassandra, passing the time with Cole or chatting with Dorian--who, she noticed now, remained in the hall, off to the side. She wondered if Alexius had seen him. 

“Thank you for showing mercy, Inquisitor,” he said solemnly. “Alexius was a good man.”

“He should be more thankful to you than me,” Lux replied. “It was by your good graces, and those of Felix, that he was spared.” She also enjoyed the thought of him on his knees, the cruel irony of serving his former slaves, but she kept that to herself. 

“Well, I guess I should thank myself, then,” Dorian quipped. “As if I don’t have enough to thank myself for already.”

She laughed, but the moment was cut short when she recalled something. She produced a folded letter from her pocket and handed it to Dorian.

“Mother Giselle gave this to me. It’s from House Pavus. Seems they wanted me to lead you into some sort of ambush.”

Dorian unfolded the paper and read it. Lux watched as his expression darkened.

“This is just like my father,” he said, crumpling up the paper.

“Will you ignore it, then?”

He stared at the ball of paper in his hands. “…No,” he said, “I suppose I should at least see what the old man has to say.” He looked up at Lux. “Would you be willing to come with me? I know that with everything else this must seem utterly unimportant.”

“Of course I’ll come. If there’s one thing I know, it’s toxic families.” She smiled bitterly. “I need to take care of some things. Shall we meet at the gates in two hours?”

“Yes… thank you, Lux.” The vulnerability in Dorian’s voice caught her off-guard. 

“Anything for you.”

“Well, of course.” Judging from his smile, Lux’s flirtation landed, but the idea of flirting reminded her of Solas and his considerations, and she felt it came off a little hollow. Nonetheless, she returned Dorian’s smile and then headed off to see the elf. 

He was perched at his table, reading. His apparent calmness pissed her off a little--here she thought he’d be deep in thought about their kiss--but she hid her frustration and leaned against the doorway.

“Dorian needs to take care of something in Redcliffe,” she said. “I might take the opportunity to close some Rifts. Would you like to accompany us?”

He looked up at her and put the book down on the table. “Yes,” he said. “You caught me at a good time.”

“Did I?” Her voice came out sultry, more so than she’d intended. She hadn’t meant to push, but this wasn’t too much, was it?

“I was hoping to collect some herbs, and the Hinterlands should have what I’m looking for.”

His voice was excruciatingly flat. If he was testing her for a reaction, she almost certainly failed. 

She tried to recover as best she could and searched for something to say, but he went first. “I watched your judgment of Alexius.”

“I saw you in the audience,” she responded. “And what did you think?”

“Why did you not ask him to conduct research for the Inquisition? Surely his mind would be of good use to us, especially in regards to his manipulation of time.”

“I cannot risk looking weak, or unwilling to punish. Giving Alexius a relaxing research job would have been too soft.” She crossed her arms. “That being said, I’m still putting his mind to use. I meant it when I said I wanted him to learn the value of the mages’ lives... perhaps if he does, he will divulge his knowledge to us more freely.”

“I see.” He stood and circled around the table, then sat back against it. “It was a wise decision. My only concern would be with Tevinter. It might have been to our advantage to have a friend in the Imperium.” 

“We can make better friends there. Speaking of which,” she stood up and straightened herself. “I should be going. We’ll meet at the gates in an hour and a half.” She folded her shoulders back and turned to take her leave.

“Inquisitor?” He used the name playfully--which, she found to her surprise, she liked. 

“Yes?” 

“Am I wrong in assuming you enjoyed asserting your power over Alexius as well?”

She turned back to him. _Asserting your power…_ it must have been purposeful. She smiled at that. “In a sense,” she admitted carefully, “I enjoyed the irony of having the master brought low.”

“Hmm.” 

“Do you approve?”

“In a sense.” He smiled back at her. 

Definitely purposeful. 

Satisfied with that, she nodded, turned slowly on her heel and left for the war table to inform the advisors of her plans.

She arrived to find them concerned. “Is there something wrong?” she asked. 

Cullen handed her a letter. “It’s your clan.”


	12. Drinks

Lux took a sip of her drink and leaned back into the pile of pillows in Dorian’s nook of the library. “What an asshole.” 

Dorian, sitting in his chair across from her, laughed. “He meant well, once, I suppose,” he said reluctantly after a swig of his own mulled wine. “But you’re right. Even if well-meaning, I can’t forgive what he did.”

She shook her head. “Nor should you. People tell you that family is important, that you should allow them their transgressions, blood is thicker than water and all that.” She shook her head again, more forcefully this time. “It’s bullshit. This world is fucked up enough without staying with people you hate. You know?”

Dorian nodded. “I’m sorry again,” he said. “For the spectacle.”

“Oh, stop it. You were _so_ brave.” She finished her drink and leaned her head on the bookshelf.

“Was I?” Was he a sappy drunk? Yes he was.

“Of _course_. It’s so easy to lose your resolve and just… go back. But here we are back here, and you never have to talk to him again. To hell with family, man.” She gestured with her empty cup and decided another fill was a good idea. On her way to get up, however, she saw early light streaming out the window. “Maker’s asshole, is it morning already?”

“Looks like it.”

“Ugh.” 

“Do you have anything to do tomorrow?”  
She shook her head and steadied herself against the windowsill. “I was _hoping_ he’d be finished with those considerations of his. But I doubt he’d talk to me in the Fade.” A dull ache started to seep into her head. She rubbed her temples.

“ _Solas?_ ” Dorian asked. She nodded listlessly. Dorian raised his eyebrows and drank to the thought. “I knew you two were close, but I assumed it was because… because you were…”

“Elves?” 

“Well, yes.”

She laughed. “I don’t even know if close is the word I should use.” 

“So it’s complicated.”

“Not yet. But it could be? I’m really not sure.” She sighed long and heavy. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

He looked at her with what she desperately hoped was sympathy and not pity. “I know you were disappointed that I’m not interested, but I never imagined you’d be so desperate as to go after him. He looks like a navel-gazing hobo, after all.”

She laughed at that, though she probably shouldn’t have. “Thanks.”

“Always a pleasure. Let’s do this again sometime.” He pulled himself up by the bookshelves and went up to his room as Lux carefully made her way down the stairs, hugging the wall. 

She planned to head straight to the kitchen and sober up, then make a short day of it and leave some of her extra tasks to her advisors. Josephine would have a lot more fun entertaining the visiting nobles from Markham than she would. Mercifully, light was just starting to flood in through the Hall’s windows, and it seemed that the only ones awake so far were the servants. Lux rubbed her eyes. Maker forbid anyone see her like this.

“Good morning.”

She swiveled around. Of course it was Solas. He was sitting at his desk, drinking a cup of tea and apparently hating every drop of it.

“Oh. Hey.”

He looked her over. “Late night with Dorian?”

She frowned. “We didn’t sleep together, if that’s what you mean.”

“Thank you for informing me.” 

She nodded in approval before realizing he was toying with her. Her head ached too much to deal with this right now.

“Would you like some tea?” 

She stared longingly towards the kitchen, but people were starting to stir in the main hall now, and though it was too late for Solas, she was determined not to be seen by anyone else like this. She nodded and took a chair opposite him, then watched as he filled his own cup and set it down in front of her.

“I don’t mean to steal yours,” she said, but still took the cup.

“Do not worry. I detest the stuff.” 

He watched as she downed the mug in a couple of heavy gulps. Her headache loosened. Solas’s distaste for tea was clear in the preparation--it was almost disgustingly bitter, stronger than she’d had since her Keeper made the mistake of letting his First make the morning brew. The memory woke her up even more, and she poured herself another cup. 

“Why make it if you hate it?” she asked.

“This morning, I need to shake the dreams from my mind. When you’re feeling better, I may also need a favour.”

She finished her second cup, and found that the worse the tea tasted, the better she felt. She emptied the rest of the pot. “I’m better now, and you need only ask, Solas.”

The fog in her head having lifted, she noticed how tense he was as he stood and turned away to face his fresco. The worry, perhaps combined with the tea, made his movements jittery and uncertain as he explained to her how his friend was captured from the Fade. Its cries for help weighed on him. She felt and repressed a pang of guilt that she hadn’t been with him when he’d heard them. She asked for as many details as he could provide, but he was anxious, and his thoughts came out just slightly disjointed. 

She reached out a hand and touched his arm. _Not a push,_ she promised herself, _just support._ He was startled out of his thoughts by the contact, but didn’t recoil.

“I do all I can for my friends, and for yours. We’ll leave this afternoon.”

The relief came off of him like a wave. “Thank you.”

Her hand fell to the side. “Of course. And thank you for the tea.” 

Rather energetic and a little pleased with herself, she walked purposefully across the hall towards the kitchen, when she was stopped by Josephine.

“Inquisitor, if you have a moment.”

She handed Lux a report.

“It may be best if you look at it in private.” She looked like she wanted to say more, but she averted her eyes to the floor and gave a low curtsy. “My sincerest apologies.” She took her leave back to her office.

Lux stared at the envelope in her hands. She had a feeling she knew what was inside.


	13. Spirit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas tries to save his friend, and Lux must make a choice.

Solas’s face fell as he saw the gash marks that had cleaved the bodies in half. “No,” he breathed. “No, no, _no._ ”

Lux saw the demon before he did. Suddenly, all she wanted to do was cover his eyes. She looked back at him and followed his expression as it shifted from hope, to confusion, despair, and then fury. 

It was something she’d never seen in him. 

“What’s happened?” she asked quietly.

“It’s been corrupted,” he said, still catching his breath. “Forced to act against its original purpose!” His hands balled into fists and he flew into panicked anger. “What did they _do?_ ” He repeated the words over and over as if that would help him think faster, but it was no use. Lux clenched her jaw. She felt powerless to help him and she hated it.

A mage waddled up to them. Judging from the dirt on his clothes, he was an apostate hiding out in the plains--but from his pudgy, clean face, he hadn’t been for long. Lux found herself disgusted by him. “Perhaps we should ask,” she said. 

Solas argued with the man while Lux watched them. In the distance, the demon writhed in blind anger. Cassandra shifted uncomfortably behind them.

They turned to her. “If we destroy the summoning circle, we may free it,” he said. 

The mage interjected. “The circle is the only thing keeping it from killing us.”

Solas met her eyes. “ _Please,_ Inquisitor.” 

She was surprised by his desperation. 

“I meant what I said, Solas. I’ll do all I can.” 

“Thank you.” 

She turned to the mage. “Get out of our way.” 

Freed by the sense that she could _do_ something, Lux charged forward. She jumped off a rock and onto the demon’s head, then up and over, and down onto the pillar. She rammed into it again and it toppled over, and before it had hit the ground she was at the next, and the next. 

She was almost at the last one when the demon came down on her. She drew her axe and made to cut it down by the legs, but caught herself at the last moment and blocked its arm. It brought its full weight down on her axe again and she collapsed under it and fell back.

“Inquisitor!” Cassandra called.

“Get the last one,” she ordered. She backed up against a rock. The demon brought its fist up again and she held her axe strong in front of her. All she saw was the demon’s face and its eyes, its terrible, blind eyes, and then all was violent and bright.

The blow never came. Blindness turned to sight and then sadness and weakness, and the demon’s form evaporated into that of a woman made of shadows. Lux and the woman stared at each other for a moment. She didn’t know what to say.

Solas came to the spirit’s side and it turned from her. She watched as he spoke with it. He lifted his hands and parted the spirit’s form like lifting a curtain. It looked at her again as it dissipated into nothingness. Its last expression was curiosity, she realized. She looked away.

When Solas returned to his feet, his body was heavy with sorrow. 

“I heard what it said,” Lux said softly. “It was right--you did everything you could.” 

“Now I must endure.”

 _Endure._ It was the saddest word she could think of. She clenched her fist. “I wish there was some way I could have helped…”

“You already have,” he said. His expression was, for a moment, almost tender. 

Then he looked behind her and it was all fury again. It might have frightened her if she didn’t now share it.

“Now all that remains is them.” His hands glowed with fire. The mages’ explanations came out blubbering and weak as he approached them like a storm. Lux saw the fear in their eyes.

“Solas,” she said quietly, but enough for him to hear.

He paused. “Inquisitor?”

Her eyes passed from him to the mages, righteous anger to terror. Slowly, she put away her axe.

She met his eyes once more.

“Rend them limb from limb.”

She watched as he did. 

When it was done, Solas stood in the midst of a pile of burning corpses, his shoulders heaving from the weight of the anger. He looked up at her and she saw herself in him, furious and righteous and powerful and desperate. Her heart stirred in her chest.

He turned away. “I need some time alone,” he said. “I will meet you back at Skyhold.”

He left her with the bodies. She looked down at them. She could still make out their faces through the fire, if only barely. 

She shivered, and wordlessly, turned away from them.


	14. Ground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas admits to Lux his feelings, and Lux makes an admission of her own.

A cold wind blew off the mountains through Lux’s chambers, and she crossed her arms to keep out the chill. She refused to retreat inside. 

Then again, what she was doing now could reasonably be called retreating. She was making herself scarce at the castle, dealing with the Inquisition’s problems by letter, and making excuses about research in order to do little more than wallow in her apartment. She couldn’t parse out why she felt this way--perhaps she was still recovering from staying up all night with Dorian, or maybe she was catching a cold. 

The mages’ burning faces returned to her, then the spirit’s eyes, falling away into nothing… she turned to return inside, but saw the report lying open on her bed and stopped. She was trapped. She pulled at her hair in frustration and then she was screaming and there was a small dent in the wall. She looked at her knuckles, now scraped, and wondered when the bruise would show.

There came a knock at the door. She wiped the blood off of her fist, hastily closed the report, hid her hand behind her back, and called down in as assured a voice as she could muster. “Come in!”

It was Solas. 

She had spoken with him only briefly outside of Skyhold on his return and returned to what passed for her work. She’d intended to speak with him at length, but with the way time passed these past couple of days, it had never happened.

She was taken from her thoughts by his expression: he was almost flustered. “Do you have a moment?”

“Sure.” 

They walked out to the balcony together. The wind had shifted, and now the castle buffered it, keeping the balcony relatively warm. 

Solas looked at her as she stared out at the mountains. “What were you like?” He asked. “Before the anchor, I mean. Has it affected you? Changed you in any way?” He wasn’t testing her now; he was searching her. For what, she wasn’t sure.

She thought of tiptoeing down a hallway at three in the morning, packing her whole life into a tiny bag, fighting with the Keeper about attending the Conclave. “I was angrier before the Conclave,” she concluded. 

_Or at least, worse at hiding it,_ she thought to herself bitterly. She studied her hand, hiding the scraped knuckles from Solas’s view. “As for the mark, I don’t believe it’s changed anything, no.” 

She thought of dreaming now, of her other life as a queen. The mark might not have changed anything, but she wondered if those dreams had. Their dreams.   
But she didn’t say that. “Why do you ask?”

“You show a wisdom I have not seen since…” He paused. Was he trying to recall how long it had been? The thought moved her heart more than she liked. “Since my deepest journeys into the ancient memories of the Fade.”

Had she passed his tests? The thought should make her happy, or at the very least frustrated that she felt tested at all, but it only made her inexplicably mad. She didn’t feel like she’d passed. 

“What did I do that so impressed you?” 

“You are subtle, curious, wise. You understand the complexity of situations you should not be familiar with. You listen to your advisors and pay attention to your friends, but your actions are your own. You are confident, but not selfish. You are not what I expected.”

The words shook her. Under other circumstances she would be overjoyed. As it stood, they made her tremble, and she held onto the balcony for support.

She felt a lump in her throat and pushed it down with everything she could. She would not cry, she promised. Not a single tear.

And yet, her words felt like crying, even if her cheeks were dry. “I am not what you say,” she said, her voice soft and shaky, almost unrecognizable.

He craned his neck to see her face. “What do you mean?”

She made herself look at him, and she saw in him burning faces, so many sad burning faces.

“My entire clan is dead.”

He was searching her again. Searching for something to say, she guessed. He touched her arm. “I am so sorry.”

She said nothing, only looked at him. His expression changed. “Or should I not offer my condolences?”

“Offer them in public,” she suggested.

“I see.”

She couldn’t leave it there. As if by reflex, she touched his hand. He didn’t move it away.

“I want to be what you describe,” she said. “Sometimes, I believe that I am. But when I got the clan’s letter asking for assistance, I was so _angry_ that they would ask me for assistance, after ostracizing me for my whole life, after laughing at me for thinking I could be more than their stupid dog, leading them deeper and deeper into those god-forsaken woods…” Her whole body was tense now, she realized, and Solas was concerned. He’d seen the cuts on her knuckles. She tried to move her hand away, but he caught it. Her heart jolted despite everything. 

“I refused to send forces,” she continued. “I would not sacrifice my loyal soldiers for those who do not deserve my protection, not even if they are my family. Josephine offered to contact a noble friend of hers, so I allowed it. And they all died. Every single one.” Their faces burned in her mind with the mages.

“And how do you feel now?”

“Angry. Still so angry... but not guilty. Not wrong. And that’s the problem,” she realized as she spoke, and looked into his eyes, remembering how she’d seen herself there on the Exalted Plains. “How can I claim to be a hero when I think like this?” She hesitated--would he take it as an accusation?--but went ahead with it: “How do you live thinking like this?”

He looked surprised and ashamed all at once, but sympathetic too. One hand let go of hers and moved around her back, and then it was wrapped around her, holding her steady as in the Fade. His other hand was tangled in hers between them. 

She hadn’t realized how much she needed this. She leaned into him.

“For the anger, I mold it and sharpen it to a point,” he said into her ear. “I do not deny it, but aim it at my enemies with as much precision as I can manage.” She buried her face in his shoulder. “You sacrificed the chance to let go of that anger when you refused to aid your clan. Now you must direct it at those who would have our people disappear. You cannot keep it in yourself, but must make use of it.” 

He clutched her hand and moved back so their foreheads almost touched. He looked into her eyes, and Lux saw her reflection in them. She looked like a mess. But she didn’t look away. 

“As for living with it,” he said slowly, “sometimes the greatest hate you must bear is your own. It does not get any easier.”

He looked so sad in that moment, and in his eyes she looked the same, and the wind was blowing across the balcony again but she wasn’t cold. She brought her hand up to his cheek. “Solas.”

If their first kiss was floating, this one was grounded, both in the waking world and in the _need_ she only just now realized she felt for him, and he for her. She held his hand so tightly she thought he might break if he wasn’t gripping her the same way. His lips and his hand and his body moved ever closer to her, as if she might fall away if he let go, and she felt that fear too, felt it move between them and dissipate in their togetherness.

He pulled away. “It would be kinder in the long run…”

She waited for a second. She didn’t want to push. She wanted him to come to her… but then she looked into his eyes again and saw how badly he wanted to yield to her, and she couldn’t stop herself from pushing anymore. 

All it took was a tiny step forward, a touch on the arm. “Don’t go.”

“No,” he said. He turned and wrapped his arms around her. “Losing you would…”   
She didn’t want to think about it. She kissed him, and he returned her passions in kind.


	15. Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The distance between Lux and Solas has finally been closed... for the most part. Lux finds she still has to wait for some things.

The demon towered over Lux as she backed up against the wall. There wasn’t enough room to swing her axe, and rocks on either side blocked an escape. She grabbed a sharp rock and made herself as small as she could. It closed in on her, and she readied herself to leap at it.

Then there was electric warmth all around her, and the demon was six feet in the air.

It landed face first on the boulder next to her. She swung with her axe and heard a pop in its skull, and then its body dematerialized, its blood gone from her hands.

Lux turned to the Rift and pulled at it with the Anchor, and it gave in to her with a snap.

She caught her breath and turned to Solas. “You protected me.”

“Of course.”

“I didn’t need it.”

He smiled. “Of course.”

She glanced quickly around. Then she kissed him.

He was surprised at first, but his surprise melted into passion, and his hands explored her, still warm and crackling from the magic. He pushed her against the wall.

They had both come to like her little pushes. She wasn’t afraid anymore, and he seemed to have let go of his trepidations as well--at least, enough to push her back. His tongue pushed into her mouth and she moaned.

There was a sharp cough and they snapped apart.

“Dorian, I thought you were still looting the camp,” she said, hurriedly patting down her hair. If Solas was embarrassed, he certainly didn’t show it, but he did fix his collar and straighten his cloak. 

“There was nothing of value,” he said, smirking, “though if you two want some privacy, I can check again.”

Lux cleared her throat. “There’s no need.” She swept past Solas, who gave her a private smile, and made a show of inspecting the abandoned camp herself. 

“I see it’s not so complicated anymore,” Dorian said, elbowing her. 

She cracked a smile. “Not exactly.”

Not that it was quite so simple, either. On trips like these, Lux felt like a teenager in the hay bales again, sneaking kisses and touches at every opportunity, running into caves and battles to find a secret moment in the dark. In public, however, she was still the Inquisitor, and the Inquisitor couldn’t be seen carrying on an affair, especially not with an elven apostate. They both understood this, and so most of their affections they carried out in their dreams, where they spent their nights together exploring the Fade and each other. They didn’t spend every night together, but increasingly she found him seeking her out in the Fade even when they hadn’t planned anything. Those nights were the best.

Then there was the small matter that they hadn’t had sex. 

To be fair, it was partly a logistical issue: the Inquisition had been busy lately, meaning Lux often worked late into the night, and there were too many people around during the day for them to have enough privacy. 

Then again, Lux had to admit it wasn’t entirely logistical, either--once or twice, when they had a few reliable minutes alone, she had experimented with pushing things a little further, but they didn’t take--he didn’t push her away, but he didn’t respond. 

He was a little more responsive in the Fade, but Lux--though she would never admit this to him--wanted their first time to be in the waking world. Even during momentary kisses in the Fade, the intensity tended to push her outside of herself, so that she would slip back into unconsciousness and dreaming. The few dreams she had alone these days left her shaken and confused: she saw naked burning faces, cloaked figures rotting in cells, the bones of her clan forming the foundations of Skyhold. She didn’t want to make love with those things waiting in the wings. 

So they waited--and truth be told, the waiting game was exciting. Every moment with him was quiet anticipation.

She might have been more anxious if not for that evening. 

They allowed themselves to eat dinner together in the atrium--they chatted idly while they ate, and afterwards, Solas went through some old tomes while Lux wrote reports. When he was reasonably certain that no one would pass through, he reached out and took her hand across the table. The gesture made her smile, but somehow, she felt that looking up at him might break the moment, so she glanced up and then back down at her work, and squeezed his hand softly.

When he didn’t respond, she looked up again and found him studying her instead of his book. 

“ar lath, ma vhenan.”

The words caught her off-guard and lingered in the space between them, filling that distance she’d always hated with something else, something that made it not a rift but full of potential.

“I love you too, Solas.”

Satisfied, he returned his hand to his books, and she went back to her report. 

If that was what waiting felt like, she would wait as long as he wanted.


	16. Noble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Inquisitor deals with her most frustrating enemy yet: the nobility. Solas gives Lux a gift.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! Chapters are getting a bit longer at this point, so I expect I'll be posting every 3 days or so instead of every day.

It had been too long since the Inquisitor had made the rounds of Skyhold. Lux spent time out and about, of course, but with the Empress’s great ball coming in a couple of months, and with the turmoil in the Western Approach, the need to make public appearances had become more dire as of late. 

So she donned formal clothing--a tunic like what she wore around Skyhold, but made from a stiff black silk and embroidered with silver spirals at the cuffs and collar--and descended the stairs of her quarters for a day of formalities.

Most days, she sped past the nobles who loitered around the main hall. She heard their jabbing remarks and comments about her people, and felt that ignoring them would give a better impression than placating them with polite words she could never believe. Today, however, she attempted to find common ground. If not entirely successful, the operation was at least well received. She endured their condolences and hollow sympathies for the loss of her clan, and responded with rehearsed thank yous, the kind that you would assume sound so forced out of sadness.

She ate breakfast with Josephine and a group of visiting dignitaries--minor nobility from Orlais and the Free Marches, Josephine had told her--and when they started to speak about the unrest in the Alienages as if they were talking about unruly pigs trying to jump their pens, she clenched her fists under the table and did not let a single crack form in her expression. When the meeting was over, they agreed to provide supplies to the Inquisition and Lux agreed to provide protection that she promised herself she would never actually give.

She spent the rest of the morning attending to the mages. Dorian joined her for half an hour and they chatted with the Grand Enchanter about the future of the mages past Corypheus. The long and short of it was that they had no plans. Lux made a mental note to keep an eye on the situation and nudge them towards forming an institution she could ally with if necessary. Something loyal to her ideals, she thought, not the Circle. 

Mother Giselle approached her before her lunch to speak about her distasteful affiliation with the Tevinter mage. The advice, and the implications therein, disgusted her, but the Inquisitor could not be seen being rude to a Revered Mother, so she folded her fists behind her back and smiled curtly. “As Dorian as discovered,” she said, “and as I’m sure you will as well, I am not one to be influenced so easily.”

She took her leave and ate lunch with Leliana, who briefed her on some of their more recent scouting expeditions. After discussing planned forays into the Western Approach and Crestwood based on Leliana’s information, she proceeded to the training grounds and spent the afternoon with Cullen, Cassandra and their soldiers. 

She didn’t bother herself training with the soldiers, but made a little show out of a pick-up spar with Cullen, who she teased afterwards for being a little rusty. He looked troubled, and didn’t take the joke as well as she’d hoped. “If there’s something wrong, you can come to me,” she said quietly, while Cassandra conducted combat drills.  
“Thank you, Inquisitor,” he said, flustered--as he tended to be when she approached him like this.  
“Please,” she said, touching his arm, “it’s Lux.”

Lux didn’t particularly like toying with Cullen’s feelings, but the Inquisitor needed him not to feel alone, even if that meant he had to believe in something that would never happen. 

Vivienne arranged for a meeting over dinner with some of her friends in the Orlesian court. They spoke in shrill, puffy voices that Lux couldn’t imitate, and gossiped about people Lux had never met. But the Inquisitor laughed politely and complimented them on their hair, as dreadful as she found it.

“Lux,” Vivienne said. “It’s an odd name for an elf, don’t you think? Wherever did your parents find it?”

The nobles clucked, and Lux tried not to break her cup. She damn well knew where it came from--this was a power play. She gave herself a moment in her teacup as she downed her drink, and decided not to back down--she would power through it.

“My father was from the Alienage in Markham,” she said, careful to act soft, careful not to let anything show. “He used to tell stories a Tevinter mage who freed his great-grandfather. My mother named me for that kindness.”

“Lux is the masculine form, is it not?” Vivienne jabbed.

“Yes,” she said. “I’d like to think that’s why I took so well to the axe.”  
The nobles laughed at that, though the joke made Lux’s stomach twist even as she said it. 

“How did your parents meet?” One of them asked. “If he was in an Alienage, and she was Dalish…”

“Our clan was staying near the city, and father was working a contract on a farm in the outskirts,” she explained. The telling needed mystery, so she smiled a private smile, as if she meant not to. “It was rather forbidden.”

The nobles took the bait. “Oh, my!”

Lux took the opportunity to glance at Vivienne. “We Elves do have our stories,” she said lightly, “if nothing else.”

They all laughed at that. She laughed too. 

She came out of the meeting shortly before dark, walked around behind a wall and ripped the delicate silver thread out of her sleeve. She was good at this game, she was damned good, but today it wore at her. How would she ever change anything if the world was this _fucking_ obtuse? 

Lux needed to be alone. She resolved to have a jug of the strongest wine in the cellars brought to her chambers, where she would camp out until the next grueling round of meetings. 

Just another minute, she promised herself as she straightened up, hid the tear in her sleeve behind her back and walked out into the courtyard. As she was about to ascend the steps to the castle, the gates opened and a caravan rolled in, followed by several of the proudest Harts she had ever seen.

She felt like a child again, watching the stableboy’s chargers from the edge of the forest. She stood a moment, craning her neck to get a better look at them, before she remembered that she was the Inquisitor and it was safe to approach.

“Your worship,” the driver said as he stepped out of the caravan.

“Where did you find these creatures?” she asked at first, her eyes wide. She stopped herself and reined herself in. “Who had them requisitioned?”

“Do you like them?” Solas had approached her so quietly that it almost made Lux jump.

She eyed him, then the driver. “How did you…?”

“It was a simple matter,” he explained. “A word with Leliana, a few short errands.” He settled things with the driver as Lux drew close to the stag of the herd, a blue-grey beauty with large and intricate horns and deep brown stripes on its hind legs who must have stood twenty hands tall. She reached out her hand to him and he acknowledged it with a nudge of his nose. She stepped forward and patted his fur; it was thick and soft.

“They are the closest I could find to the Harts I have seen in the Fade,” he explained. “The ones in my memories are much larger, but…”

“But these are glorious,” she finished. That was as fitting a name as any: “Hanin,” she said into his fur. 

She turned to Solas. _“Thank you,”_ she breathed. He seemed surprised at how grateful she was; then again, he had no idea what the day had been like. 

“It was nothing, Inquisitor. Only a small favour.” 

She wanted to do more, especially when he looked at her like that, but she could feel other eyes on them. She turned from him. “Shall we speak later?” she said quietly.

“I will be waiting,” he agreed.

As he walked up the steps, she decided to allow herself one small indulgence, just one, after such a long day. With a leap she mounted Hanin, though he was still unsaddled. For a moment he jolted as if to throw her, but she took his fur in her fists and leaned forward and held on with her whole body, and after a moment he calmed. She sat up, took a breath of and rode him in long, looping circles around the courtyard until all the light was gone and the curious nobles had left to their beds.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Solas, perched at the top of the stairs, watching her. For the first time that day, she relaxed.


	17. Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Choices and ghosts haunt Lux and Solas in the aftermath of their journey into the Fade.

Darkness came in with the wind, filling the chambers with a chill that Lux couldn’t shake. She set down her quill and closed the balcony doors. She took the opportunity to put on another kettle for tea--she expected this to be a long night. 

Not that she missed the sleep. She had seen enough of the Fade for a lifetime.

Thoughts of tentacles, a deep voice ringing in her ears and pure, pure fear crept in from the back of her mind. She shook them away and went about stoking the fire. 

She was about to return to her writing when there came a knock on the door. She sat back down at her desk and stretched her legs underneath it. “Come in,” she called.

She heard the quiet steadiness of Solas’s steps before she saw him. His face looked grim. “Good evening,” he said.

“Good evening.” She wasn’t looking forward to this conversation. 

He sat down in the armchair in front of the fireplace and folded his hands in his lap. “What are you writing?”

“My report,” she said. “I suspect this is one for the history books, so I thought I’d take the night to focus on it.”

“And what will you be leaving for the history books?” 

His words jabbed at her, but she didn’t want to take the bait. “At the moment, I’m writing about the Fade.”

“Oh?”

She lifted her quill from the page and leaned back in her chair. _I should probably extend the olive branch._ “What do you think I should write?”

“This is your story, Inquisitor. Write what you saw, what you experienced, how you felt. Write what you will.”

“I don’t think they’ll be interested in hearing about what I felt.” All she felt right now was frustration, and when she thought back to it all she saw was Hawke’s face as the choice sunk in, as it sunk from confusion to anger to despair and then to resignation. She wished there was another choice. She wished she could have been the one, she wished they could all have survived together. But history would not hear about her shortcomings. 

“On the contrary,” Solas said. “The whole world will wonder how you felt, once you are no longer there to tell them.” He paused. She knew what that pause meant, and she braced herself. “I admit,” he continued, “that even I wonder about your thought process now.”

Lux frowned and pushed her chair back from the desk. “Go ahead, Solas. Say what you must.” It hurt more than she cared to admit that this was why he was joining her at this time of night, despite worries of castle gossip.

“I question your choice about the Grey Wardens.”

“I know.” She exhaled carefully. “Why?”

“I worry that you chose to support a popular organization rather than acknowledge its corruption.” 

She looked down at her quill. “I did.”

“Now, the Wardens face impunity for actions that were cowardly, foolish, and extremely dangerous!””

“Yes.”

“And you abide this? After everything?”

 _“Yes!”_ She stood up. “Is that all?”

He stood as well. “I wish to understand, but if you will not provide me anything, then I will take my leave.”

He hesitated, but she remained steadfast. Only when he started to turn around did she speak. “Do you truly believe I didn’t think this through?”

He stopped, but he didn’t say anything. That hurt too. Lots of things hurt right now, and untangling them was a mess that was making her bleed. She took a breath and deflated a little, leaning against her desk.

“You’re right,” she began. “The wardens are cowardly, foolish, and dangerous. I will not have them running rampant in Thedas.”

“So you will allow them to pollute your organization?”

“I will have them under our guard.” She crossed her arms. “What do you think they would do if I exiled them? What would _Corypheus_ do? Thousands of vulnerable soldiers, terrified of death? I won’t allow that sort of wildcard to slip past us, not at such a crucial time.”

His posture softened a little, and he stopped frowning. It was a start. “So what will you do with them?” 

“If they are nothing else, the Grey Wardens are loyal to my cause,” she said. “I did not command that loyalty for my ego. There are military operations too dangerous for our soldiers, and I will send the Wardens instead. If they survive, I will perhaps rethink my stance, but I expect not many will.” She said the last part more softly. 

“I see.” He took a long pause and sat back down. Lux took it as an invitation, and sat in the chair next to him.   
He turned to her, gentler now. “Then why make such a rousing speech in their support? What sort of message does that send?”

“That we are merciful,” she said, “and that we have enough power to not have to worry about a few vulnerable Wardens.”

“Do we?”

“Not at all. But that’s not the point.” She frowned and stared at the fire. She’d forgotten about the kettle, and now it was blowing over with steam. She picked it up and set it down next to the fireplace, and turned back to Solas.

“I thought very carefully,” she said. “I listened to your opinion, and I acted. Why do you not trust me?”

That wounded him. “I… I worried you were influenced by other factors that may have blinded you.”

“Why was that your first assumption?”

“Your speech was… very convincing.” He looked into her eyes. “I apologize for judging you prematurely.”

It was sincere, and she appreciated the flattery, but the hurt was still there. She looked away out the window.

“I suppose I hoped you would understand without an explanation,” she said quietly, after a long moment of silence. “That was unrealistic. I am sorry too… I’ve just made so many decisions lately.” She sighed and receded back into her chair.

“Vhenan…”

Solas stood. At first she thought he meant to leave, and she sat up, but instead he walked behind her chair and softly pulled her back into the seat. He pressed his fingers into her temples and ran them through her hair, massaged her head and her neck and behind her ears. She closed her eyes.

When she opened them, he was above her, looking down. She took his hand and kissed his fingers, and looked up at him. “Why _dying alone?_ ”

“Hmm?”

“Your worst fear,” she said. “I saw it in the Fade.”

He lowered his eyes and let go of her hand, pacing to the other side of the room.  
She stood and followed him.

“It seems foolish, I suppose,” he said quietly. “After having been alone so long.”

“Not at all.” She sat down on the bed and craned her neck so she could see his face. “You don’t have to explain it, if it’s private.”

He sat next to her on the bed. “Spending so long alone is precisely why I do not want to spend my last moments the same way,” he said. “I fear it because I worry it will come to pass.”

She cupped his cheek in her hand and looked into his eyes. “It won’t.”

He looked at her with such sorrow that she worried she’d said the wrong thing. She supposed it was the wrong thing to be so sure of in their situation. But he smiled too. “That is a rather long-term commitment to make at this stage, don’t you think?”

“I don’t just mean me,” she insisted. “Even if I’m gone, you have the rest of the Inquisition.”

“You truly believe you will be close with them for the rest of your life?”

“Yeah, I do. Blood of the covenant, and all that.” She didn’t want to say _they’re all I have,_ but with the water of her womb dead and gone, she figured it was implied. She fell silent.

“And what is your worst fear?”

She turned back towards him, and he slipped his arm around her waist. It was meant as a comforting gesture, but they were on the bed, and the thought distracted her. “What?”

“It is only fair that I ask you, since your headstone was apparently absent from the Fade.”

“I thought the spiders made it pretty clear,” she quipped, smiling.

He chuckled, but he waited. He wanted a real answer. She tucked her head into his shoulder.

“Dying,” she said, finally.

“What about it scares you?”

Lux thought of the burning faces again, of Hawke’s face, and finally of the spirit, glancing at her as it faded from existence.

“When my mother died, my clan was just packing up to move. It was urgent, they said, we had to leave in a hurry. We didn’t have time to bury her nor the space to carry her, so we put her out on the river on an Aravel and lit it on fire.” The thought made her shiver. “I can’t help but imagine what she would have said, if she were there. And then I think of the things I’ll be absent from, and it’s terrifying.” 

He wrapped his arms around her. “Vhenan… I am so sorry.”

“It’s in the past.” _Dead and buried,_ she thought ruefully.

“The past lives in us, my heart,” he said into her ear. “We carry the dead with us, and we bring them to life with our actions.” His voice took on a different tone than she was used to, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint why. “So in that way, you can live forever.”

“Maybe,” she said, “but I want my actions to be my own.”

He laughed. “I suppose that is fair.” He kissed her head, and for a moment let go of her. 

She thought he meant to leave, and reluctantly she started to move away from him, but then he held her again, tighter this time, as if she would move away if he gave her any room to breathe. She slipped her arms out of his grip and around his waist, but only just in time before he lay down and took her with him.

She nudged off her slippers and tucked her head in under his. “Are you alright?” she asked.

“I wish I could make you live forever,” he whispered.

She held him closer. 

“Vhenan, I…” his voice trailed off.

“What is it?”

“Can I sleep here tonight?” 

Lux pulled back so she could look him in the eyes. He looked sad and tired and somehow defeated. “Of course,” she said. She sat up and got under the blankets, and he with her. She looked out the window and at the fire, which was down to embers. It was so dark outside that she wondered if they were dreaming already.

Solas traced the line of her cheekbone with his fingers. She leaned down and kissed him. His lips were warm and beckoned her closer, but when she felt his cheek she found it wet. She pulled away to look at him. 

She wasn’t sure what to ask, so she searched his face for an answer. She found none. The sadness was already gone for the most part, overtaken by exhaustion and the slightest hint of trepidation. He smiled at her. “Come, Vhenan,” he said, pulling her into his arms. “It has… been a long day. Let us dream together.”

He fell asleep easily, but it had been so long since Lux had slept with someone else. She waited until she heard his breathing slow, and then she shifted upwards so that she was holding him, his head nestled in her collarbone. The movement seemed to make him anxious; he gripped at her in his sleep and mumbled something. Kissing him seemed to calm him down. 

His face became peaceful in a way she never saw when he was awake. In the dwindling light of the fire, he was perfect. 

She watched him until the light was too dim to make out his face, and the chill came in from the ghosts outside, and then she cuddled in as close as she could and let herself drift off into the Fade, where he was waiting for her.


	18. Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux wakes up to find her relationship with Solas a little more complicated, and with the ball at the Winter Palace approaching, she struggles to work out her feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait--I graduated yesterday!! :D
> 
> Next chapter is going to be a big one. Should be up by Monday...

Lux woke up first. She tried to stay with him longer in the Fade, but the sun and the birds outside wrested her from sleep, and her thoughts kept her awake until she knew she couldn’t go back.

Solas was still clutching to her in his sleep. _Like a child_ , she thought, smiling, although she imagined he would resent the comparison. She watched him until something caught his attention in the Fade and he loosened his grip on her, and took that chance to wriggle her way free and get out of bed. She carefully tucked him under the blanket, brushed her hair out with her fingers, and allowed herself another moment to look at him before trotting down the stairs to the kitchen. 

She smiled at the cook. “I’m feeling hungry this morning,” she said, a little too cheerfully. “I’d like a double helping of your full breakfast, please. And a jug of water for some tea.” 

The cook looked at her incredulously. “Would you like some extra water, your worship? Perhaps for a second cup of tea?” 

“No, thank you,” she said. “I’m feeling awake enough as it is.” Only once the words escaped her mouth did she realize the cook was smirking. _That wily fox_ , she thought, and frowned as the old dwarf handed her two plates of food and a jug. She balanced the plates in one hand and the jug in the other, and hurried across the hall and back up the stairs, kicking her door open with her foot as she went.

She found Solas awake, sitting at the edge of the bed. “Good morning,” he said.

“I brought breakfast,” she said, closing the door with her foot again. She set the plates down on her desk, then poured water from the jug into her kettle. “Though I think the cook suspects something.”

“Our web of secrets is finally coming unraveled?” He kissed her head.

She laughed. “I suppose it was only a matter of time.”

 “How will you handle it?” He sat down across from her.

 “As I always do,” she said, taking her seat. “With an air of confidence and dogged determination.” She smiled and he returned it, and she thought this might be the best morning of her life.

She focused on her food for a minute, but her eyes wandered back to the bed. “So, uh…” she wasn’t sure how to put this. “How was it? Last night, I mean.” It was coming out wrong. “Was it… different? From sleeping alone?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Yes, I suppose it was,” he said. “Feeling your body in the Fade and in the waking world at the same time… you became more palpable." 

The word slithered into her ear and made her insides writhe. “That’s… good.” She tried to quell the lightness in her stomach. “Would you like to do it again sometime?”

“How about tomorrow?” He smiled again. “If you don’t mind being seen by the cook a second time.”

The thought seemed foolish all of a sudden. “Of course not,” she insisted. But something else nagged at her. “There is one thing, though…”

“Hmm?”

She frowned. “I’m more than happy to wait until you’re comfortable, but if we sleep together every night, I may start having strange dreams.”

He laughed, and the laugh became a smile, teasing and testing and just a little tender. “After the Ball at the Winter Palace,” he said, “Perhaps we can schedule an evening together.”

She saw his meaning: too many rumours before the ball could hurt her standing in the court. The thought of him worrying for her reputation made her heart warm. She stood up, her breakfast finished. “As it happens,” she said, smiling, “I do find myself in need of a date.”

The idea clearly intrigued him, but he was hesitant. “You would do better bringing someone with a better reputation. Cullen, perhaps.”

“Can you imagine how awkward he’d be?” She laughed at the thought. Then she sighed. He was right, she had to admit, as much as she liked the brazen rebelliousness of presenting an elven mage apostate to the court. “I want you at my side,” she said seriously. “If not as a date, I’ll find another way to have you there.” 

“If you can find a way, I’d be delighted,” he said. Seeing Solas delighted was an intriguing thought. He stood. “Until then,” he added, “Here at Skyhold, I am yours.” 

_I am yours._ A blush crept across Lux’s cheeks before something clicked in her head.

 _It’s perfect_ , she thought. _He can be my eyes and ears at court, it won’t raise any suspicion, and…_ the excitement must have shown on her face, as Solas was scowling at her now. “What are you thinking?” he asked. 

Lux smiled. “I have an idea.”


	19. Paint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux is riding high after the Ball at the Winter Palace, and Solas has an idea for an evening together.

Still high on the power trip of publically outing the Grand Duchess, Lux set off from the Winter Palace in the early morning, took a quick break for lunch, and made it to Skyhold in time for dinner. She expected the retinue would take another couple of days to return, which meant she had the castle mostly to herself. 

Solas managed to keep up with her for the most part. She enjoyed throwing him off-balance by spurring Hanin to a gallop with little warning, but he was so in tune with his mount that she was rarely able to surprise him. She wondered if he was using magic or some connection to the Fade, but either way, she was impressed.

They spoke little on the return trip, save for idle chatter about the ball, its attendees and their reactions to Lux and her elven serving man. He hadn’t been too happy about the idea at first--the ugly hat he was required to wear embittered him to the notion more than anything else--but once at the party, he seemed to enjoy the invisibility that being a servant provided.

As for Lux, she played the Game as if she was born to it. Solas didn’t even attempt to test her during their conversations on the way back to Skyhold, so she knew she had impressed him, as well. She knew that later, once the high wore off, she would tense up at the thought of nobles whispering behind her back and asking her for drinks… but for now, she was content to have proven them wrong.

In her room, she unbuttoned her dress jacket and let herself breathe. Her clothes were damp with sweat and smelled like hart. She took the jacket off, tied it around her waist, and looked in the mirror.

She wondered if it was pushing too hard to visit Solas like this. Her undershirt hung damp and limp off her body--in a certain light, the shape of her breasts was quite visible.

She sighed sharply to herself and trotted down the stairs. It was so peculiar to be suddenly worried about impropriety with a lover--with Solas, no less, someone she trusted implicitly. She’d never loved her adolescent paramours the way she loved him, but with them she wielded her nakedness like magic. Now, it felt clumsy and confusing.

The prevaricating was killing her. She had to push, even if it meant wearing sweaty tank tops. She strode across the main hall and to the atrium.

Solas had changed as well--he was wearing his painting tunic, unbuttoned at the top and with the sleeves rolled up. From the looks of it, he’d been sweating too. She admired him.

“Enjoying yourself?” he asked.

She smiled. “After today I think I deserve a little enjoyment,” she said. He chuckled and returned to what he was doing.

She looked down at his hands. His desk was empty, his papers piled on another table off to the side. In front of him were several mugs and some brushes. He seemed to be mixing paint.

“Preparing for the next fresco?” the mugs definitely looked a little small for that endeavor, she observed.

He looked up at her and smiled. “I have a somewhat different canvas in mind, actually.”

“Oh.” Lux was tragically bad at anything artistic; Solas’s talents simultaneously enraptured and mortified her. Opting not to make a fool of herself asking about his work, she changed the subject. “Have you eaten yet?”

“Yes,” he said, focused again on his pigments. “I am a little busy with these at the moment. If you’d like to meet later, I can come up to your room once you’ve finished eating.”

The formality made Lux instinctively straighten her back. “Yes, of course,” she said, her voice the Inquisitor’s now, like they were planning a business meeting. “We’ll talk later, then.”

She got a plate and brought it back to her room, feeling a little defeated. It seemed he’d hardly noticed the undershirt. Maybe the light wasn’t right?

She read a book while eating dinner. It was a book of stories she’d borrowed from Leliana. She hadn’t read stories like this since she was a little girl--she would rather have made them than read them, even at that age--but now, she found herself needing the inspiration. The pictures engrossed her more than the words: portraits of knights and princes and magic, hand-painted in colours that still shined as if they were fresh.

She imagined herself in one of those portraits. What would she look like? A dazzling heroine, dancing with her lover on the balcony of a castle? A shadowy figure standing in front of a funeral pyre? A shining hand with no face, no personhood aside from this otherworldly gift?

She sighed and closed the book, only to find Solas standing at the top of the stairs.

She jumped in her seat. “I didn’t see you come in.”

“I can be quiet, when I want to.”

He was still wearing his painting tunic. It was unbuttoned all the way. The view distracted Lux for a moment before she realized he was still holding his paints and a couple of brushes. She sighed. “If you want us to paint together, I think you’ll be sorely disappointed. I’m really not very good.”

He walked forward and set the paints down on the table, and that was when Lux noticed how confidently he was moving. He offered her his hand and she took it and stood up, and all at once he kissed her deeply and pushed her onto the desk. She gasped, and he took it as an invitation, his tongue tracing the corner of her lip and then moving into her mouth. She slipped her hands into his shirt and felt his chest and his back. His body hummed with magic in a way she’d never felt before. She pulled him closer and explored him, felt him against her, nudged his hands towards her breasts.

He pulled her shirt off and stopped to look at her. His gaze excited and emboldened and frightened her all at once--it was hungry, resolute, enticed, but also curious, like he was looking for something underneath her skin.

He kissed her once more, but the kiss had finality to it. She tried to follow his lips, but he pulled away.

She frowned at him, and suddenly he was nervous. “Do you remember,” he asked, “when I said I had a different canvas in mind?”

“Oh.” She understood now. She was an idiot for not understanding earlier. “What do you want to paint?”

“You,” he said, cupping her cheek in his hand. “Your exploits, your strength, your wisdom…” he kissed her again. “You are so beautiful. I want to show you.”

Lux looked into his eyes, and saw something there that she found unfamiliar: he was hopeful. She took his hand and brought it down to a brush. “Alright.”

Slowly, carefully, she slipped out of her pants and took her jacket off her waist. She lay them on the bed and turned to look at Solas. He looked at her for some time. Was he examining her? Admiring her? Or both? Whatever words she meant to say caught in her throat, and she was left there in precarious silence.

His eyes left her for his paints, which he began to mix on his palette. She wondered how this was different from the way people watched the Inquisitor on her throne. She loved being watched as the Inquisitor; it was how she maintained her authority and commanded respect. It was a strength she wielded over people. She didn’t feel strong now, but she didn’t exactly feel weak either. She would feel exposed--and perhaps she did, a little--but the way his eyes were moving across her body now was reverent.

She straightened her back, but not as the Inquisitor would, not nobly or rigidly. No, she thought, this was a pose. She aligned herself into the canvas she wanted to be for him.

Solas stepped forward. He brushed his hand over her collarbone and tucked her hair behind her shoulder. Then he dabbed his brush in a deep maroon colour and began his work.

After some time laying the groundwork, he set his palette on the ground at her feet and worked with both hands. One hand he kept pressed against her skin, holding her body in place, while the other held the brush. It felt soft and precise, and sometimes ticklish; she had to keep from twitching sometimes. His brush hand was steady, but the one touching her quivered almost as much as her own. Meanwhile his face was perfectly focused but delicate too, almost worried.

“What inspired you to do this?” she asked.

“Admittedly, I have been wanting to do it for some time,” he said. “I first thought of it when you spoke with me in Skyhold after the Fade.”

“That early?” she smiled. “I thought you said there were considerations.”

“Considerations do not preclude fantasies.”

“So you fantasized?”

“Quite often,” he admitted. His eyes remained fixed on a spot above her breast, which he painted in a golden yellow. She wanted him to paint her with his lips, but the distance between them was as tantalizing as any touch.

They fell into silence again. He moved up to her shoulder and across her arm.

He came to a scar just below her shoulder blade and stopped. Suddenly Lux was aware of all of the scars that cut up her body, all the weight they carried for her. Her body already told a thousand stories, etched into her with steel. “What will you do with it?” she asked.

“I cannot paint over them,” he said. “They are a part of you. I will emphasize them.”

He painted it like a crack in the earth, lava and light bursting forth from the dark.

“I got that one with my mom,” she said.

“Tell me about it.”

“We were hunting a bear. We tracked it for hours. At some point, it started to hunt us, and I made a careless lunge at it thinking it would cower away.” She watched the scar turn into fire and strength. “Mom was so upset…”

“You were close with her.”

“Very close,” Lux said. The words made her realize how close _he_ was now: just a breath away, his brush moving up her neck. “I do wonder what she would think of me now. She always thought of things as us against the world, but now I have the Inquisition, my friends, my new family… and you.” His brush stopped mid-stroke, and they looked at each other, and she watched him hold himself back with all his strength from taking her against the wall. The thought shivered between them.

He moved away to her hand.

“What about your parents?” she asked. “Were you close?”

“They passed away long ago,” he said quietly. “When I was quite young.”

“I’m sorry.”

He took her hand in his and opened her palm, and traced its lines with his brush until they were bright on a black background, winding around her fingers and wrist like a golden thread. “I barely knew them,” he said. “I have been alone so long, it does not trouble me anymore.”

“It does,” she insisted, as he finished her hand. He looked at her again.

When he returned to her body, he took her breast in his hand, and for a second she thought he might give up on the painting. Instead, he drew his thumb around her nipple until it was hard, then painted a spiral of deep blue and light grey around it.

“What else do you see in me, Vhenan?” His voice had that hint in it again, like he was testing her. Now, though, with his hand moving down her waist, the test took on a different valence.

She thought about it while he painted broad strokes across her stomach, stopping to streak bright yellows and oranges across the scars along her ribcage.

“I see someone who has been alone so long that he is used to bearing the weight of the loneliness,” she said. “I watch you so scared at feeling light again, and I want to show you that it’s alright, but I don’t know how." 

He held her thigh as he brushed it with a deep red, and his fingers came so close to her that she gasped. He moved down to her knee, and she wondered if he had heard.

Then he kissed her knee, slowly and lightly. “You are kinder than you realize, my love.”

“But that is just what love is, isn’t it?” She asked as he drew along her calves, following the lines of her muscles. “Wanting to ease the burdens of those you care for.”

“I suppose it is.” The notion made him focus more deeply on his work, and they fell into silence for some time.

When they spoke again, he was working on her other shoulder, moving towards her marked hand with a deep forest green.

“Where did you get this scar?” he asked.

She smiled. “Do you remember when I protected you from that Qunari in the Fallow Mire? The one who had the axe I now wield.”

“Ah. Of course.”

“I still wonder if that one will go away eventually.”

“Do you want it to?”

“No,” she decided. Seeing them become fire and light, she felt proud of them.

He moved down her arm to the mark now, and the deep green became brighter as he approached it.

“Solas?” she said, barely above a whisper.

“Yes?”

“If I die, will you be the one to tell my story?” He opened her hand and painted the center of her palm like a bright light. “Not the story of the Inquisition, but mine. I would trust no one but you to…” her hand shook in his and she almost tripped on her words. “…to carry me with you,” she finished. “If it came to that.”

He entwined his fingers in hers as he painted them, and pressed his face against them. “My love… I would be honored.”

The thought made her cold, and she shivered. Her skin came alive with goosebumps. Finally, he moved to her face. He brushed over her vallaslin, over her eyebrows and her forehead, brushed her lip with his thumb when a droplet of paint fell there.

And then he was done.

Solas stood up. Tentatively, Lux turned around and looked at herself in the glass.

She saw a strange creature there, someone somehow uncanny and yet someone she had seen before, perhaps in a dream. Her shoulders were painted like armour forged from stone, her scars crackling through. Her hand was wrapped in thread--it constrained her but it was her weapon, and when she lifted her hand up it flowed down the inside of her arm like water.

Her breasts were the sun and the moon and her stomach the horizon, holding up a castle that reverberated with magic. On her legs lay the ruins of their people, strewn across fields and forests that ended at her feet. On her thighs perched two black wolves, howling up at her in mourning for what was lost.

Her other hand--her marked hand--broke through the Fade, but it was not the hand of the Inquisitor. It was hers--strong and steady and cracking at the seams. Her fingertips were pure white, tentative, as if reaching for something beyond the Anchor but unable to quite grasp it.

Her face was unfinished. Her vallaslin were painted over, replaced with white lines that moved out from her nose up to her cheekbones, but otherwise her skin was her own.

“Couldn’t decide how to complete it?”

“It is unfinished because you are unfinished,” he said. “I still eagerly wait to see what you will become.”

She turned towards him. “You’re seeing it now,” she murmured. “You are my great love. You are my becoming.”

Finally, slowly, tentatively, they closed the distance between them.

Lux pulled off his tunic and pushed him to the bed, and Solas held her hips and brought her on top of him. He stroked her back with his fingers and his magic flowed through her bones, warming her, electrifying her, making her shudder.

She beckoned him into her and moved against him slowly, gently. She found herself so afraid that she would push too hard and he would move away. But when she looked into his eyes she saw no hesitation, and when he pulled her down into him and rolled them over, she knew she had him, and he would not leave her no matter how hard she pushed.


	20. Rising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux and Solas find themselves in a compromising position, and Lux makes an important choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's stuck with this so far! Sorry if I've been a little quiet. I'd love to hear from you if you've been reading this up till now. 
> 
> While I was writing last night, my entire fanfic (30k+ words!) spontaneously turned into 250 pages of asterisks. I almost had a heart attack, but Word proceeded to spontaneously crash and reboot with the doc intact. Maybe it's a sign I should put up chapters more often so I don't lose them...

At some point that night, they must have fallen asleep, because Lux came to her senses to find her body impossibly entwined with Solas’s, their limbs melting into each other, a beautiful mess of breath and heat and touch.

 

She felt daytime calling to her, but Solas pulled her back in and wrapped her inside him. “Stay close, Vhenan,” he whispered into her ear, and when she lifted her head to ask why she found them falling through space and time. They were in Haven, burning, in the forests, in a ruined village, in Arlathan. They were cradled in the branches of a tree and hanging off the edge of a cliff. Gravity meant nothing here, so Lux pushed him and they tumbled off into the ocean, and the water was warm and thick like honey.

 

“Always, my love,” she said, kissing him and throwing them through a thousand more places in time and memory. “I’ll always stay close.”

 

She woke up.

 

Her head was rested on his chest, his arm around her and her legs entangled in his. He stirred beneath her. They were both covered in smudged paint. To her disdain, she discovered that the sheets were, too, and to make things worse, they were damp and pungent with sweat… and maybe other fluids. Probably other fluids.

 

“Good morning,” he cooed.

 

She smiled. “Did you sleep well?”

 

“I am more rested than I have been in some time,” he answered, pulling her to him again.

 

She kissed him. “I know the feeling.”

 

He laughed and pulled her on top of him. She pressed her lips to his neck and his collarbone and was setting about exploring the rest of him when she heard the castle gates open.

 

She sat up. “It sounds like the retinue has returned.” Her disappointment was palpable--she could barely keep from pouting. “They’re early.”

 

“Actually, from the look of the sky, they are late,” he corrected, sitting up on his elbows. She looked outside. He was right--it looked to be at least noon.

 

“Oh. Wow.” She laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever slept in this late.” He was silent, which made her laugh more. “I see you can’t say the same?”

 

“I have never been known as an early riser,” he admitted. “But that depends on your definition of rising.”

 

She looked down at his body and smiled suggestively. “And what is your definition?”

 

“I meant that my journeys in the Fade mean that I am very active at night,” he explained. She kissed him anyways and pressed him down into the bed, and he pulled her into an embrace. “Of course, you are welcome to continue with your fantasies.”

 

“I think this is a little more than fantasy.”

 

He smiled and kissed down her neck and her shoulder. But the sounds of horses trotting into the castle grounds became overwhelming, and reluctantly, he pulled away from her. “We should make an appearance. Perhaps I should return to the atrium.”

 

She smiled again. “We’ve made an impression with the nobility, and Corypheus has been denied his army,” she said. “I’m done keeping secrets.”

 

He watched her as she leapt out of bed and dressed, the smudged paint still covering her body. She washed her hands and face with a damp cloth so it wasn’t visible, but she left a spot on the back of her neck as a teasing reminder. Then, she gathered the dirty sheets. “Wait here,” she said, and strode down into the main hall.

 

She swept past the nobles, but allowed herself a smile as she heard them gasp and go silent. Silence turned into whispers and gossip as she left the sheets in the servants’ quarters and proceeded to the kitchen.

 

The cook gave her a look that was part bemusement and part judgment. “Hungry enough for two again, your worship?”

 

“Actually,” Lux corrected, her voice just loud enough to echo through the halls, “my lover is waiting in my room, and I’d like to bring him breakfast in bed. Tea for one, though, as usual.”

 

When she returned to her room, breakfast in hand, Solas was at the door, listening. She gave him a wide, proud smile.

 

“You continue to surprise me, Vhenan,” he said, kissing her.

 

She walked past him up the stairs and set the breakfast down on the table. “Just wait,” she said, “until they see you walking down in your painting tunic.”


	21. News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The news of Lux's paramour spreads through Skyhold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait--I completely forgot to post anything this week! This and the next chapter are both short, so I'll post the next one in a couple of days, but after that the chapters get longer. Thanks for reading!

The news of the Inquisitor’s paramour spread like wildfire through Skyhold, and soon flurries of ravens nested in the rookery carrying gossipy notes for the nobles staying at the castle.

According to Leliana, the reactions were mostly congratulatory. Lux wasn’t under any illusions that the nobility was happy about her decision, but that they at least had the respect for her to remain civil was a good sign. She had Leliana take note of those who showed open disdain for the relationship; they were not true allies to the Inquisition, and a watchful eye on fickle friends could only be a wise move.

The reactions among her closer companions were more mixed, to Lux’s surprise. The first time it came up was with none other than Vivienne, who approached Lux while the latter ate lunch and read reports in the courtyard.

“Lingering looks is one thing, but carrying soiled sheets through the Great Hall is quite another, my dear.”

Lux looked up from her reports. “You thought I was too direct?”

“More than direct,” Vivienne sneered. “It was tactless, brazen. The nobility knows you as a radical as it is, without you parading around your apostate elven lover and his bodily fluids.”

Lux smiled at the thought of a parade for Solas. She wondered how he’d react. Perhaps she’d dream one up for him and see. “The Inquisition just put back together the shattered mess that was Orlais, largely by my hand,” she said. “I’ve also heard I made quite an impression that evening. I think I’ve earned the right to be a little brazen.”

“Not if you want to retain your popularity at court,” Vivienne warned.

Lux frowned at that. “The nobles need to know I’m not a trained elf,” she said, her smile gone now. “If I am to maintain their favour, they must know I’m not a lapdog. That’s what brazenness accomplishes. If some dirty bedsheets frighten them so much that they cower in their castles rather than support the force that is saving the world, they are not worthy allies.”

Vivienne’s lips tightened. “As you say,” she said coolly, and took her leave. Lux wondered if the enchanter herself had lost favour among her more mage-fearing noble friends, but thought little else of the exchange.

On the other end of the spectrum of reactions to the news was Cole, who must have felt it coming for a long time. Lux brought him along with Solas and Cassandra to run some errands in the Emerald Graves, and he practically glowed the entire trip, giddily reciting what he could gather of their emotions and memories.

It started innocently enough. “He thinks he is dreaming,” he said as they made their way on their mounts at a trot through the woods. “A hand cutting through the Fade, a wounded knee, and it is a good dream. But then--hair like a sunset bounces in the light of the fire, paint and sweat drip from her ribcage, a fresco smudged in the sheets, and perhaps he is awake, every nerve awake with her--“

“Cole,” Solas said, “that is quite enough.”

Lux smirked at the idea of a bashful Solas.

“Sorry,” Cole said, a little deflated.

“How do you feel about it, Cole?” Lux encouraged.

Cole thought about it for a moment. “My friends are a little lighter, so I’m lighter too,” he said.

Lux smiled at that until she remembered Cassandra, riding behind them now. She turned back to find her blushing. She slowed Hanin to a walk until she was in step with Cassandra’s horse.

“I didn’t mean for you to hear that,” she said, rather formally than she intended. “My apologies.”

Cassandra looked at her with an expression Lux found unfamiliar in her--was she flustered? “Are you saying that all this time, you two were…?”

“Not the _whole_ time,” she corrected.

“I knew you were close, but I thought…” She cleared her throat and tried to cover up her discomfort, but something else occurred to her. “When Cole mentioned paint… did he truly mean…”

Lux blushed a little, despite herself. “Actually, yes,” she said quietly. She was tempted to add some sort of justification, but found none that would end well, and so stayed silent. 

Cassandra looked at first at a loss for words, but her expression relaxed after a moment. “That is… very romantic,” she said. She looked impressed, almost… dazzled? It was a funny look on such a surly woman.

Lux had to smile. “It was,” she said, a little proud now.

Cassandra seemed to quietly appreciate their relationship after that, occasionally asking Lux how things were and whether nobles were bothering them, promising to set anyone straight who did. She found her giving suggestions to Solas one day about romantic weekends away from Skyhold.

“Did she offer them freely, or did you ask for her advice?” Lux asked after she’d left.

“I refuse to make any confirmations,” Solas replied, smiling.

The others were mostly quietly happy for the two of them, though not as surprised as Cassandra. Lux endured bawdy jokes from Sera with the clipped disdain she used to endure most of Sera’s behaviour; she avoided being tripped up by Bull’s sexual quips and questions, which she recognized as not just friendly fun but a tactic to catch her off-guard.

Cullen’s quiet sadness at the affair didn’t escape her notice, though she wasn’t entirely sure how to deal with it. His recovery was ongoing, and Lux needed a military commander with a clear head, but now that meant striking a balance between allowing him space and letting him know he wasn’t alone. She resolved to spend more time with him, and pretended not to notice when he stole forlorn looks at her.

Perhaps the one she was most surprised by, however, was Solas. Cole was right--he seemed lighter now that they were publically involved. He spoke with the other companions more at Skyhold, took strolls of his own to see the courtyard and speak with the mages, and occasionally showed his affections to Lux in public. They were small gestures--a light touch on the back, or a warm smile when none was warranted--but they didn’t go unnoticed, by Lux or by Skyhold’s inhabitants.

She couldn’t speak for the latter, but as for herself, she enjoyed it more than she expected to. Now that she thought about it, truly the most surprising reaction to all of this was Lux’s own. She thought a public relationship would make her feel naked, but now that it was out in the open, she felt as she did that night--as if her scars were on fire, beautiful and powerful and something to be cherished.


	22. Coward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux passes judgment on a betrayer.

“Gordon Blackwall… no,” the Inquisitor corrected herself. “Thom Rainier.”

 She looked down at the crowd before her. Her judgments drew audiences now, but this was an abnormally high turnout. She suspected that the drama of the Inquisitor judging a friend-- _a former friend_ , she thought angrily--was enticing to them.

 It was off-putting, but if they wanted drama, they would get it. She stood. “You will atone for your sins by aiding the Inquisition in the defeat of Corypheus,” she declared. “Once our work has finished, you will join the Grey Wardens, as your namesake intended.”

 Blackwall… Rainier… shook with relief. She hoped the crowds couldn’t see it, but she did allow them to see the contempt on her face. “Thank you, Inquisitor,” he breathed.

 He began to gather himself from the ground, but she stopped him with her words. “Let it be known,” she said haltingly, “that this sentence is a mercy given on behalf of the Inquisition, not a favour from a friend. You will continue your work here, but you will not speak to me. You forfeited that privilege when you chose the way of the coward.”

  _There’s your drama,_ she thought as the crowd erupted into murmurs. She searched the crowd for Solas, and when she found him, she gave him a small nod before leaving through the side door.

 She went straight to the stables. Mercifully, they were empty but for the mounts.

 Hanin greeted her with a nuzzle, and she gave him a handful of grass and began to brush him. Solas found her brushing out a little knot near his shoulder. Hanin grumbled, but allowed her to pull at it until it came undone. She was frustrated, and he seemed to understand.

 “I had no idea he was such a coward,” she said stiffly. Anger kept her bones tense and her insides knotted, which was a good look for the Inquisitor, but not so much for Lux.

 Solas leaned against the door to Hanin’s stable. “None of us knew what he was.”

 Hanin exhaled sharply and fidgeted in place. He’d taken a liking to Blackwall, who always hung around the stables and sometimes brushed him as a favor to Lux. Blackwall preferred riding the Fereldan Chargers, but he came to enjoy the Hart’s company as well. Lux spoke with him a number of times at the stables. She worried at first that Hanin would become too attached to the Warden to bond properly with her, but upon speaking with Blackwall at length, she found they had much in common.

 She _thought_ they had much in common.

 Solas didn’t seem to know what to say. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. She thought of going to him and burying her head in his chest, of willing this whole thing away, of leaping on Hanin and taking him somewhere quiet where she could rest.

 Instead, she returned her gaze to Hanin’s fur.

 “His actions were foolish,” Solas said, “but I believe he only meant to help the Inquisition. Is that truly cowardice?”

 She turned to him. “ _Lying_ is cowardice,” she said. “We agreed once that cowards did not deserve the protection nor the allyship of the Inquisition. Have you forgotten?”

 Solas hesitated. “No,” he said finally, “I have not.” Something gave him pause, but after a moment, he continued. “I believe you made the correct decision, Vhenan,” he said softly. “I only wonder if carrying this anger will cause you unnecessary suffering.”

 The sharp angry pit in her stomach softened just a little, and she relaxed her shoulders. “Thank you, Solas,” she said. “But I will bear it.”

 Hanin seemed to hear her, and turned his head to nudge her on the shoulder. She pressed her face into his neck. He nickered and nudged her again, and she patted him behind the ears as he liked. Solas watched them.

 “I’ll have to come to the stables more,” she said quietly. “Hanin will need company.”


	23. Wild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux accompanies her forces to the Arbor Wilds, but strange dreams follow her from Skyhold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Canada Day/Independence Day weekend! :)

Lux stood from her throne, but as she stood the ancient horns and dragon’s bones that it was made from came to life and bore into her back, transforming into skeletal wings. She looked up and tried to fly, but instead they weighed her down and she sunk into the floor. She fell to her knees.

“Vhenan, remember what I said.”

 She summoned the echoes from the back of her mind. _Find yourself,_ they said, _reach into the Fade and find yourself_.

 These bones on her back were not hers, though. They were unfamiliar. She could move and shape the charred bones that littered the floor--as she thought of them, they rattled against the ground--but what was she to see of herself in the bones of a dragon that had been dead for thousands of years?

 She thought of the dragon’s birth, of an egg carefully hatched at the top of a mountain, and she remembered a seed.

 She saw her mother. _Your anger is a seed. You keep it in you, you care for it, and it grows into something strong and steady._

 She thought of a dragon breathing fire that melted armour and burned to the bone, and she thought of herself, standing over a fire. Or was it Solas? Was it both of them?

 What had she grown in those ashes?

 Lux raised her hands, liberated from the weight of those terrible wings. Behind her stood a great tree wrought from bones and ironbark. Its branches reached to the ceiling of the great hall. It grew from her mind, but its shape was foreign to her--a vestige of what this ruined city had once been, perhaps. Or maybe…

 “Good,” Solas said, stepping into the throne room. “Your progress is quite impressive.”

 “Is it progress if you do the work?” she asked.

 “What do you mean?”

 She gestured towards the tree. “I brought the raw materials, but you shaped it.”

 His expression saddened. “That was… unintentional.”

 She sighed and walked to him. “It’s alright,” she said. “I have made progress, even if I’ve drawn from you to do it.” She smiled, and found the world around them brighter for it. “As long as you’re with me, it makes little difference whether my strength here comes from you or me.”

 That caught him. It was the sort of thing that in the waking world might give him pause, but as he said, he was more confident in the Fade. He took her into his arms and kissed her deeply, and all at once the castle was ablaze with some ancient fire. They fell back against the tree, their armor gone now, and the tree shifted to accommodate their bodies. The fire crept up its roots and into its branches, and Lux felt its warmth as Solas’s touches burned her. The flames licked at her and he licked at her, and she melted into the tree until her bones became its roots and its life flowed through her.

 Lux woke up with a start.

 She sat up in the tent. At first she lay still and silent and waited for movement in the tents around her. As a child, she always talked and groaned in her sleep, and these dreams with Solas had only made her louder. When she heard only her troops snoring, she sighed and lit a lantern.

 The light woke Solas up. He pulled her into his arms. “Come back and join me, Vhenan,” he mumbled.

 She kissed him. “I’d like to stay awake for a bit.”

 He sat up on his elbows. “Is there something bothering you?”

  _Yes_ , she thought, but she couldn’t tell him. She had no idea what he’d do if he knew how unsettling she found the Fade. Their time together there was intense and beautiful and terrifying, but she couldn’t help but feel like she was caught in someone else’s dream, surrounded by spirits watching her for reasons she didn’t understand. Even when the dreams felt incontrovertibly hers, it worried her that Solas saw her laid bare like that--her ambitions, her insecurities, her most private feelings.

 But she wouldn’t say that. She could deal with worry, and in the end, it was worth the time she spent with him.

 She cared for him so much that at times, it felt like a wound.

 Solas brushed his hand through her hair. “Vhenan?”

 She realized she’d been staring off into the distance in her thoughts. “I’m just anxious about tomorrow is all,” she said, catching herself.

 “What worries you?”

 She tried to think up an answer and found that she really was worried about tomorrow. Still, it was hard to put into words; it wasn’t something she could pinpoint, but rather a general feeling of malaise.

 She decided to tell him as much. “I’m not certain. I could use some time to think, actually.”

 She kissed him until he fell back into the pillows. His hands freed, he ran his fingers down her back and lower, until she shivered. He pushed her away just until she lay over him, their noses touching. “This may not be the best way to think,” he said, smiling.

 “I was planning on touring the camps.”

 He kissed her again, but it had a finality that had become familiar. She sat up on her elbows and pulled away from him before he could do it to her. “I will be waiting for you, my love.” His expression was as patient and as cool as always, but his body told her not to keep him waiting long. She resisted the temptation to stay with him and got up instead, wrapping a cloak around herself before she slipped out of the tent, lantern in hand.

 More lights were on in the tents than she expected. It seemed Lux wasn't the only nervous one. She took comfort in the thought as she crept around the edge of the camp. Occasionally, she passed soldiers sitting outside their tents. She did her best to appear the calm and resolute Inquisitor, off to a late night war council or last-minute meeting, but mercifully, not all of them recognized her, and those who did only greeted her briefly and let her go.

 She picked up her pace as she neared the edge of camp and pulled up her hood so no one would see the Inquisitor stalking off into the darkness. She found a tall boulder overlooking the river and perched on a patch of moss there, her lantern carefully set down next to her.

 Here in the dark, with the light of the tents far behind her, she almost thought she was back in the forest with her clan.

 As a child, she used to sit at the edge of camp like this, staring out into the dark. Her mother would inevitably wake up without Lux next to her and come fetch her from the riverside or the lakeside or wherever they were, chastising her in sharp whispers and warning her about bandits and demons. After _mamae_ died, she found herself in the dark more often, and by then, bandits didn’t worry her.

 If she focused enough, the horses across camp and the opening of tent flaps became the shuffling of Halla and the wind against the sails of the Aravels. She thought of her gods for the first time in a long time.

 Something occurred to her--she knew why she was anxious. Relief washed over her like the river water, and in the dark she let herself smile and relax.

 Her eyes must have only been closed a few seconds when she heard the snarl.

 Her instincts told her to snap into action, but she had no weapon and no armor. Instead, she forced her heart to be calm and slowly opened her eyes.

 The wolf was wading through a shallow part of the river. It must have been five feet to the shoulder at least, its fur as pitch black as the river; at first, she only saw it as a patch of darkness in the dappled moonlight of the water. Then its eyes met hers, and it stopped in its tracks just at the shore.

 This, too, was familiar to Lux, and so she knew not to look away out of fear. Wild animals were known to stalk the camps; mamae had taught her how to keep them at bay, but mamae had always been there to chase them off before anything happened. She regretted putting her hood up on her way here.

 But the wolf made no move to attack her. She listened for others behind her or to her sides, but heard nothing; in any case, the camp would scare off any animals that tried to come closer, even to hunt prey. This wolf was alone, she realized, but it didn’t look starving or desperate. She searched its eyes for some explanation and found only that it was searching her as well.

 Something stirred in her chest, something she hadn’t felt since she was a child.

 “Fen’harel,” she whispered, barely audible.

 The wolf’s ears perked up.

 She moved slowly, deliberately, and reached out a hand. She steeled herself so she wouldn’t quiver. The wolf flinched, but didn’t move away or towards her; it stayed steadfast, its eyes locked in hers. “Are you…” her voice cracked, and she paused to calm her nerves. “Are you the Dread Wolf?”

 The wolf took a step towards her, and her heart leapt with excitement and terror.

 Then there was a flash of light, a yelp, and the creature took off back into the dark.

 “I’m afraid that was but a regular wolf,” came a voice from behind, “as far as I could tell.”

 Lux sighed, with relief and with disappointment. “Thank you, Morrigan.”

 The witch took the wolf’s spot at the river’s shore and looked out at the forest. “I find myself surprised to find the Inquisitor sitting alone in the dark without a weapon,” she said, crossing her arms and turning to Lux. “What exactly was your plan?”

 Lux held out her hand and it rippled with green electricity. “I wasn’t defenseless.”

 “Ah, yes, your mark. If only you had the power to use it more than once a day, you might have had a chance.”

 Lux was too tired to find a response. She cursed inwardly for forgetting that Morrigan had seen her use it earlier on an especially difficult despair demon.

 Morrigan must have seen the frustration on her face, as her expression softened a little. “Oh, I’m sure you would have been able to wrestle the life out of it with your bare hands, Inquisitor. I’ve seen you fight; I’m not fool enough to assume you’re weak.”

 “Only reckless?”

 “You know what they say about heroic types and martyrdom.”

 “Thankfully, I got over that phase some time ago.” Still, the thought made her shiver.

 She returned to Morrigan to find the witch studying her; in the faint moonlight, her eyes almost seemed to glow. “What is it that bothers you about our battle on the morrow? Is it the chance that you’ll lose your life?”

 “I’m not going to die tomorrow,” Lux corrected gruffly, but she knew she was avoiding the question. She sighed and stared across the river. “I suppose it’s that I haven’t met my gods in a long while. Being the Inquisitor has allowed me not to think of them until now, but I don’t have that luxury anymore.”

 “And what do you think?”

 She looked at Morrigan again. The witch reminded her of Solas, in a sense--she had the same testing expression, though not with the same motives. Morrigan had met her hero already; Lux got the sense that she was making a comparison.

 “I believed in our gods for a long time,” she said, feeling again like she was at her clan’s camp. “I was never the most liked, so they kept me company. Now, with the breach, and all of this, I…” she eyed her hand again as it crackled, sending needles of light pain up her wrist. She’d learned to ignore it, but it was difficult in the dark with nothing else to focus on. “I’m not sure what I believe, now.”

 “Whatever you choose to worship, believe this: the Eluvian is real, the power in the Temple that Corypheus seeks is real, and we must get to it. At any cost.”

 Lux found Morrigan’s expression serious, and wasn’t sure what she was hoping for from the witch. Empathy?

 “You’re right,” she said, steeling herself again. “I’ll leave my anxieties at the camp.”

 Her words piqued Morrigan’s interest. “You are surprisingly lucid here. Has your apostate been training you?”

 “Here?”

Morrigan raised her eyebrows. “You truly didn’t know?”

Understanding came suddenly, and Lux felt for a moment like she was falling. She looked behind her and found her clan’s camp, just beginning to stir with the promise of first light. She turned back to Morrigan. “But we--I woke up, in the tent…”

The slip made Morrigan smirk. “I see your apostate has been doing more than training you, then.”

Lux frowned. “I knew I was in the Fade until I woke up.”

“It seems he waited for the opportune moment to bring you back. That apostate is certainly not all he seems…” She turned on her heel and walked past Lux, laughing to herself. Lux opened her mouth to protest, but Morrigan interrupted. “Don’t worry, Inquisitor, I will not judge you,” she said. “After all, it’s a trick I’ve played myself.”

“On who?” Lux could hear the camp stirring in the waking world now. She felt her waking body and found it cold and moist.

“Someone of whom you remind me,” Morrigan said, and as she turned around Lux found herself being pulled from the dream into an embrace.

She awoke in Solas’s arms. Dawn’s pink fingers streaked across the sky. She was surprised to find herself by the river on the mossy rock, Lux’s lantern having long since gone out; she assumed the whole thing had been a dream, but it seemed she had indeed made it out to the edge of camp.

Before she was alert enough to do anything, Solas picked her up and started to carry her back to camp. After a quick survey of the camp--indeed, even though it was starting to get light out, mostly all the soldiers were still in their tents, meaning Lux was safe from their scrutiny--she allowed him to continue and nestled into his side. She was surprised with the ease by which he carried her; he was stronger than he looked, it seemed.

“When did you notice?”

He glanced down at her and smiled. “I noticed you’d come back to the Fade, but it took me some time to realize you weren’t in the tent,” he explained. “I thought perhaps you needed some space, so I didn’t approach you, but when I found myself alone in this world, I came out to find you.”

“Thanks.” It seemed she did need space, if the rock by the river was an easier place to drift off than the tent. Now, though, she was fine. She thought back to the wolf. Perhaps it was a construct of her imagination, or a friendly spirit, or perhaps… whatever it truly was, it brought her some relief to see one of her gods. She felt ready now to meet the others.

Solas set her down in front of their tent, and when she emerged she was every bit the Inquisitor again. She strode across the camp and made her way to the vanguard, and as Morrigan met her there, she gave the witch a silent nod. Morrigan returned the gesture, but her eyes strayed to Solas, her expression unreadable. 

Lux turned from them to Cullen. “Are the troops ready?” she asked, standing tall.

Cullen nodded. “On your call, we make the charge, Inquisitor.”

Lux drew her axe.


	24. Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux returns from the Temple of Mythal with a heavy heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait for this one - I'm in the process of moving cities, and it's been rather hectic! On top of that, I lost about 3000 words when my computer crashed yesterday. -_- I'll try to stay to a stricter schedule (and to let my computer take it easy) from now on.

Morrigan tucked Kieran in under the covers and kissed him on the head. When she raised her lips, the boy was already asleep. Lux wasn’t certain if it was a spell or mere exhaustion. She rose from the bedside and joined the Inquisitor out in the garden, shutting the door gingerly behind her. Her expression was cold and sharp as ever, but her posture was different: she was slouching a little, and her arms were crossed to protect herself from the cold when before it didn’t seem to affect her. Lux was careful not to show her sympathy, though--it would be all but lost on the witch. Instead, she made herself stoic and resolute, despite her feelings.

“Does he need anything?” she asked.

“As of yet, no,” Morrigan replied. “I plan to keep a close eye on him in the coming days. I will let you know.”

“And is there anything you need?” She made it sound as professional as possible, as if she expected Morrigan to request a quill and pen.

The witch saw through it, though. Of course she did. “I am quite alright, Inquisitor,” she said stiffly. “You need not worry for me.”

“Alright.” Lux wanted to say something else, but she sensed Morrigan wanted her gone. “I’m here to help with anything if you change your mind.”

Morrigan nodded, but fell silent. Lux got the sense she wouldn’t be changing her mind anytime soon.

The Inquisitor took her leave, walking briskly across the courtyard. As soon as she was in the hall, though, she slowed down. She felt the stress of the day in her body; her muscles were stiff and wracked with cramps, her jaw clenched and aching. Upon returning from the Temple of Mythal that morning, she knew she had a lot to think about, but the act of thinking alone seemed insurmountable; she resolved to keep her mind occupied with paperwork and such around Skyhold. That was when she found the Eluvian, with Morrigan inside.

Morrigan and Mythal. _Mythal._ Her fingers quivered at the thought. If thinking was too difficult this morning, now it was impossible. Lux tried to eat a little in the kitchens, but found herself too unsettled to get anything down; she had the servants prepare a bath instead, and brought up to her room a flagon of wine, a loaf of bread and some fresh cheese in case her appetite return.

Sitting at her desk there, she found Solas waiting for her. He was reading some giant tome, but when he closed its pages and looked up at her, he looked concerned. No doubt he’d heard about what had happened from Leliana. The servants set down the tub in the corner of the room and poured the bath as Lux put the bread and wine on the desk. She stayed silent and stoic and stoked the fire until the servants were safely downstairs and out of earshot. 

Solas watched as she undressed and stepped in the bath, but she found no desire in his eyes--only comfort, which was good of him. She lay down in the tub and leaned back. The water almost scalded her skin, it was so hot, but being burned almost felt good right now. The pain was distracting, if nothing else.

“Would you like to talk about it?” Solas’s voice was quiet and tender--perhaps a little vulnerable. Lux wondered why--perhaps his day had been difficult as well.

“No. I’m alright. I’m not surprised,” she insisted, “I’m not.” She knew it was insistence because her voice sounded so desperate, even to her. To avoid the feeling, she sunk into the tub up to her face, closed her eyes and sighed slowly. She undid the braid in her hair under the water, and when she re-emerged, Solas was standing up, looking out the window towards the balcony.

“Did it surprise you?” she asked softly. “Any of it?”

The question seemed to startle him out of something--she could see it in his reflection--but he didn’t turn around. There was a long silence before he answered. “No.”

She left it at that, though she wasn’t sure whether it was because she wanted to or because she couldn’t find anything to say. She closed her eyes and rested her head. She wasn’t sure if she drifted off for a moment, but when she opened her eyes Solas was still at the balcony window.

“It should have been me,” she said.

He turned around this time, his eyes stern and passionate. “No, Vhenan,” he said, kneeling by the side of the tub. “You heard what Abelas said at the Temple. You would be a slave.”

“We might have found a way to undo it. Until then, I would have made the sacrifice to save our people. With that knowledge, I could have…”

He shook his head and took her face in his hands. Against her cheeks, his hands were cool and dry and made her shiver. “Nothing is worth the sacrifice of your freedom.”

She opened her mouth to argue the point, but found his expression resolute. She sighed and smiled to herself. “Perhaps you’re right,” she conceded. “If only there was another solution… I’ve never taken these binary choices very well.”

He smiled too. “Of course not. You want to be the hero who does everything right, who makes no mistakes and saves everyone.”

“Is that naïve?”

“It is inspiring.” He kissed her. His hands remained chaste at her cheeks--he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable--but she brought one hand down into the water, and once encouraged he explored her body freely. She gasped a little into his mouth as he moved deeper. Soon they abandoned the bath for the covers, and steam rolled off of Lux’s back as they became one.

By the time they were finished, the bath water was cold and their sheets were clammy and damp. Lux frowned, but in any case, her muscles were relaxed again. Solas sat up in bed as she put out the fire and got them some dry blankets. She left a few embers in the hearth and put the wet sheets in the tub to soak, and he helped her make the bed.

Solas looked up at her. “I have never known you to make a choice you yourself did not support, Vhenan,” he said. “Why did you allow Morrigan to drink from the Well?”

Lux smiled, but more than anything, she looked defeated. “It was you,” she admitted. “I wanted the power, I thought I could handle the risk, but then I thought of you and what you would do if something happened. I didn’t want you to regret failing to save me.” She lay down on the bed and stretched out, beckoning him into her arms.

Instead, he sat down and leaned over her until he filled her field of view. He kissed her deeply, his lips laced with electricity. Lux felt magic radiating off of his body as he pressed down onto her, and the intensity of it caught her off-guard. For the first time, she felt powerless under him. It would have frightened her if it weren’t so exciting.

When he finally withdrew, his expression was grave.

Lux never knew what to do when he became like this. Did he think she didn’t notice that he was looking at her like she was about to disappear? She found herself thinking of the way he spoke after his friend, the spirit of wisdom, died. _I will endure_ , he had said to her, I _always do._ She wondered how much death he had seen. She wanted to assure him that she would not be the next, but she couldn’t find the words.

She would have to assure herself and lead by example, she decided. She rolled them over and kissed him again, and then massaged behind his ears, where he got tense sometimes when he was stressed. He liked that, and his expression softened a little. _Good_. She smiled and rested her head on his chest, listening for his heartbeat. It was slow, as usual. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I don’t regret my choice. Though sometimes I wonder if you’re starting to distract me.”

“I should hope not, Inquisitor,” he said, his teasing not lost on her. She closed her eyes.

They fell silent, and Lux drifted in that dark and timeless place at the edge of sleep. Solas stirred, and she realized he was still awake. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the embers in the hearth had gone out.

“Can we take a vacation?” she mumbled.

Solas chuckled. “I’m not sure now is the best time.”

“It’ll take some time before the troops make it back from the Arbor Wilds. We could go for three or four days. Run some errands, perhaps, forage for herbs.” The appeal of the idea woke her up, and she lifted her head. “You mentioned an artifact in Crestwood.”

He smiled and kissed her on the head. “The Inquisitor need not lure me with artifacts and herbs,” he said. “She need only make the command, and I am at her disposal.”

“Are you, now?” She kissed him, but she could tell he was tired. They would have to continue this in the Fade. She rolled over and he wrapped his arms around her. “A vacation it is, then,” she said. “I’ll make the preparations, and we’ll be off tomorrow.”

“Yes, Inquisitor,” he murmured into her ear. The idea seemed to relax them both, and soon they were holding each other in the Fade, where Lux found her energy had returned, and her body was as limber as it had ever been.


	25. Guide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry!!! I didn't realize it had been so long since the last update. I had the last chapter all ready a while ago, but I've been far too lazy with my writing. I'll put up chapters consistently for the next week to make up for it, I promise!!!

Lux brought in her reins and drew Hanin to a slow trot, eyeing the demons slinking about just down the hill. She saw five or six shades, a couple of wraiths, and a faint orange glow coming from inside the house… was that a rage demon? The green light coming out through the windows suggested the rift was just behind the building. The Anchor tingled up her arm with anticipation. She eyed the trees just to their left, leading down. If she could make a decent jump off that ledge…

Screams came from inside the building, then cries. A child. The family was still in there.

All thoughts flew from her mind as she vaulted off of Hanin and down the hill. “Protect them!” She shouted back at Solas, still on his mount. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him leap from the hart and start down the hill behind her. Then, in one swift movement, she turned to the shades, drew her axe and charged them, knocking two a few feet away. She drove her axe into one of them with force that shook the ground, then kicked the other one and bore her weapon into the third. They closed in a tight circle around her and she flung herself in a circle, and felt one dematerialize from the impact. The other two she dispatched with in short order.

Weren’t there more…?

She turned to find three shades in the house pinning Solas and the family to the corner of the room. His barrier magic was holding strong, but it was draining him, and three shades were too many in close quarters. He looked weak.

“Solas!” she called, and charged the shades into the wall. She ran one through, but the other two pushed her back to the door. She glanced behind them. The children were sneaking out the window with Solas’s help. Relief came over her and she took down another shade. One left now. She looked back again to give him a triumphant smile. She liked when he watched her.

He met her eyes with concern. “Behind you!” His hand glowed as he lifted it.

Lux dropped to the ground and rolled over onto her back. The rage demon loomed over her, the low roar of fire booming out from its chest. Lux kicked it upwards and rolled to the side. She felt heat on her back, but no pain, so she used the momentum from the roll to propel herself to her feet and launched straight into another whirlwind of her axe. When she faced the demon her axe found solid ice, and it shattered under the blade. 

She sprinted out behind the house and brought her mark down on the rift with all her might. She could feel another demon on the other side forcing its way through and she tightened her grip on the rift. Would it be enough? She pulled harder, but she could feel it slipping from her grasp. 

Then Solas’s hand was on her back, and the cool of his fingers flowed through her to her hand. She found her grip and gave one last pull, and the rift gave in, the sudden release flinging her back onto the ground.

She enjoyed the quiet for a moment before Solas helped her up. “Thank you, my love,” she said. He smiled at her. She made to kiss him, but remembered the family, who were now approaching her. 

One of the children came first, her eyes wide. “Are you the ing--the Inquisitor?” She spoke the word slowly and deliberately--she must have only just learned to pronounce it.

Lux smiled. “The one and only.”

“You saved us… your worship saved us,” her mother said breathlessly. She had a baby in her arms, and the man behind her carried a toddler on his shoulders. Lux eyed them. 

She didn’t have to say anything before the father reacted. “We came back to get some things,” he explained. “We thought if it was only for a moment…”

Lux gave a look to Solas. Clearly he shared her sentiments--his expression said as much--but there was no need to chastise them now. Hopefully the demons had taught them enough of a lesson.

“Yes, well, you’re safe now,” she said, smoothing out her voice from disgruntled to graceful as the words came out. “Do you have all you need?”

“Yes,” the father said, “but if the area is safe enough… if the Inquisitor is nearby, perhaps we could stay…" 

Lux frowned. She had dispatched a group of bandits nearby, hopefully the last--but it was hard to be sure. She reached into her pack and found a couple of extra knives and a scroll. She unfurled it and revealed the watchful eye of the Inquisition. “If you put this on your door, you’ll be under our protection,” she explained. “I’ll have some of my men come check on you until you’re settled. Until then, you’ll have to defend yourselves.”

Reluctantly, the mother took the knives. Lux looked down at the young girl, still all eyes at her. “You’ll have to learn to use one of those, I imagine,” she said softly. “If you want to protect your siblings, you have to be strong.”

“Like you?”

That lifted Lux up a little. “Yes, like me.” Solas’s smile at that did not escape her notice.

“Isn’t she too young?” the mother protested.

Lux shook her head solemnly. “I was about that age when my mother taught me. Maybe younger.” The truth was, she was a lot younger, and with the world as it was, the girl needed to learn soon.

“Why don’t you stay for dinner?” the father suggested. “We brought food in our packs. A nice home-cooked meal.” 

Lux frowned. The offer was kind, but their vacation… but the Inquisitor couldn’t say that. But she couldn’t look indecisive, either…

“Inquisitor,” Solas interjected, his voice serious and cold, every bit the killjoy advisor. “The veil is thin here. If we do not activate the artifact soon, I worry for the other rifts in the area.”

She had to keep herself from smiling as she turned back to the family. “I’m sorry. I have to get back to it." 

The father looked a little disappointed, but the kid was more in awe than anything. A heroic exit was better than staying long enough for the excitement to wear off, she thought. 

“Be safe,” Lux said. “We’ll look out for you.”

She and Solas walked in step, and they got about halfway up the hill before Lux felt something tackle her legs. She turned, startled, only to find the girl hugging her.

Suddenly she felt very awkward--she always avoided the children in her clan, and had barely seen any since she joined the Inquisition, Morrigan’s peculiar son notwithstanding. Solas laughed, hopefully not at the look on her face.

When the kid wouldn’t let go, Lux took her shoulders and gently pushed her off. The girl looked up at her nervously. “Remember,” Lux said, “Protect your family.” She thought it would be sufficient to be inspiring, but the child continued to stand there expectantly. Not knowing what else to do, Lux reached into her bag and found a child-sized knife, its hilt adorned with spiraling silver. She carefully pressed it into the girl’s palm. “Here,” she said. “Just… learn to use it first, alright?”

The girl nodded vigorously. “Alright!” All smiles now, she ran back down the hill to her parents, waving the knife above her head.

“I am not certain that was the best idea,” Solas said, but he was still laughing.

“I had to get her to go away somehow,” Lux insisted. She hurried back to Hanin before another little human latched itself onto her.

When they were a ways out from the house, Lux glanced at Solas to find him smiling to himself. “What is it?” she asked.

“How entirely expected that a vacation with the Inquisitor should almost solely entail closing rifts,” he answered.

She laughed with him, but he was right. She had imagined a relaxing time cantering through the fields, eating at pubs and making love under the stars, but instead they had ended up closing two rifts, clearing out a camp of bandits, killing a wyvern that had been plaguing the farmers, and helping an elderly man find his deceased wife’s necklace. They did eat at pubs, but Lux found herself too tired for the pomp and circumstance of the Inquisitor gracing the crowded bar with her presence, so instead they laid low and settled for being treated like elves--which was badly, of course. As of yet they had only found time for each other in the Fade, and even there, Solas seemed anxious and distracted. Perhaps he had research he’d left incomplete at Skyhold. 

“Where shall we go this evening?” Solas asked, breaking the silence. “Back to the Frolicking Elf?” 

His intonation made her laugh. “I can barely imagine an elf frolicking anywhere near that dump,” she quipped. They reached the top of a hill and she stopped to look over the field. It teemed with life, with druffalo and herbs and flowers. “Why don’t we go hunting?” she asked. “I can get us one of those”--she pointed to a small druffalo off to the side of the herd--“and you can find us some herbs, and maybe get some bread and cheese from in town.”

“I am impressed you have the energy to hunt a druffalo single-handedly,” Solas said. “I can help you if you need it.”

Lux beamed. “I won’t need it.”

“Alright.” His tone suggested he didn’t fully believe her. She would prove him wrong, she thought, and he would just have to watch and be impressed from the sidelines. She straightened in her saddle.

He turned his mount around and she reached for him, and they leaned over the sides of their harts and kissed. This had been awkward the first time she tried it, but by now she was practiced at it, and she hardly lost her balance on Hanin as he drew back from her and brought his mount forward. “I will meet you here in two hours.”

She waited until he was over the hill, but she just knew he’d be back to watch. She dismounted Hanin and gave him a scratch behind his ear. “Wait here,” she told him, and he bowed his head to graze as she skirted around the cliffs overlooking the field until she was above the druffalo. She drew her axe and used the momentum to leap off the cliff onto the druffalo’s back. The beast groaned and she brought the axe above her head to land a single, decisive blow on its head.

The druffalo bucked with all its might. Lux jolted to the side and the axe slipped out of her grip as her fingers flew to its fur. She held tight. All of a sudden she became acutely aware of the herd around her, eyeing her angrily. If she fell, they would surely trample her. She grabbed for the dagger in her boot, but the druffalo bucked and charged and forced her hand back to holding on for dear life.

Lux cursed under her breath. _How Solas must be laughing now_ , she thought. _The Frolicking Elf. The irony must be unbearable._ The Herald of Andraste, bested by a fucking druffalo, and not even an adult! She walked out of the fucking _Fade_ for this… 

_The Fade_. The beast jerked to the side and Lux was staring at the ground, holding on barely by one leg and the druffalo’s thick fur between her fingers. Instead of trying to get back up, though, she hit it hard with her left hand and pushed with the Anchor.

The force knocked her back and she let go of the beast as the Rift opened inside it. She fell back into a shallow puddle. When she lifted herself to her feet and got her bearings, the field was quiet again. Somehow, the herd had been drawn off. Lux sighed with relief.

She felt a tap on her shoulder. Her mind raced for a half-second, searching for her wits, before she realized it was Hanin, not Solas. The hart nickered and groaned and nudged her again with his nose. So Solas wasn’t watching her. She wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or frustrated; it wasn’t exactly graceful, but it must have looked kind of cool.

Lux rested her face on his head. “Did you draw them away for me?” He watched her with glassy eyes and took her embrace quietly for a few moments. Then he shook her off. She got the hint. “I know, a rest. You’re right,” she said. “Thank you, my friend.” She undid his saddle and reins, setting them down in the grass, and took out his bit; the freedom brightened him right up, and he found a nice dry spot with the best grass to graze. _The herd leaving benefitted him as well as his caregiver,_ Lux thought with a smile.

She hitched her axe to her back and then turned her attention to the carcass--or, she noticed with some disdain, the half-carcass; it seemed the rest of the beast had gone to the Fade. She knelt over the druffalo; she hadn’t intended to kill it so clumsily.

“I’m sorry, for what it’s worth. May… may Falon’Din guide you.” The prayer came stuttering from her mouth, and as she evoked the God, Solas’s words from the Temple came back to her and she shuddered. She hadn’t been certain of her gods before all this; now, her stubborn arguments with her clan’s Hahrens seemed a nostalgic pipe dream. She sighed and corrected herself. “I’m sorry,” she said simply. “It should have been faster.”

She decided to put it out of her thoughts and drew her axe again. She’d have to skin the thing and make a fire before Solas got back. She was sweaty and filthy under her armour, and her body still ached from being flung from the beast. She set her axe down, undid her armour, and got to work.


	26. Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the sad one.

Solas returned to their meeting spot to find the carcass skinned and Lux roasting its meat over a hearty bonfire. She was in her underclothes only; the heat of the fire made her sweat even in her tunic. Hanin enjoyed the warmth from a distance and grazed quietly at the edge of the field. When he saw his fellow hart, he trotted up to Solas’s mount and the two touched noses. Lux kept an eye on the meat as Solas undid the hart’s saddle, patted its side and let it free to relax for the evening. Then, he joined her at the fireside and opened his pack to reveal herbs, fruit, cheese and bread.

“This is great,” she said as she picked a few herbs and began rubbing them in her palms. She took the meat, still half-cooked, from the heat and rubbed the herbs into it as best she could without burning herself.

“Your work seems to have gone as planned as well,” Solas commented. “Except… where is the other half of the carcass?”

Lux rubbed the back of her neck. “In the Fade, I think.”

He chuckled. “I see.”

Lux put the skewers at the edge of the fire where they would cook slowly, then turned to her lover. “And how was your afternoon?”

She found his eyebrows knotted with worry. She changed her tone. “Is something wrong?” 

“I… we can speak of it later. For now, let us focus on dinner, and the fire.”

“Alright.” Lux accepted the offer, but begrudgingly. Solas would not speak of it if he didn’t want to… but his reticence bothered her. Once again, she was tempted to push.

She distracted herself with a piece of fruit, and discovered as she smelled it that the hunt had left her quite hungry. The fruit was juicy and sweet and a little tangy--she had never tried this variety before, but this was as good an introduction as any. She wolfed it down and reached for another with one hand as she licked the juice off the other.

When the last droplets of juice from the third fruit were gone, she sat back and smiled. “This is nice… finally some peace and quiet.”

“Yes,” Solas said, but from his tone it sounded anything but peaceful in that head of his.

Lux gazed into the fire and let the camp fall silent. Solas busied himself cutting the cheese and bread with a dagger and preparing the rest of the herbs. When the meat was almost finished, Lux decided to cut the silence, and opened her mouth to say something. 

“If we recover the orb from Corypheus, what will you do with its power?” Solas’s voice was quiet and hesitant, but his expression was somehow resolute.

Lux took the meat off the fire and set it down on their plate. The question’s timing caught her a bit off-guard. “Do you think we’ll recover it intact?” she asked. 

“Perhaps.” His eyes were intent on her now-- _another test_ , Lux thought, more bitterly than she expected.

She looked up and watched the smoke trail from their fire into the sky. It was already getting dark. The wind blew, bringing the cold air in from outside the camp, and Lux shivered.

She couldn’t say she hadn’t thought about it, but she hadn’t allowed herself to hope until now. She imagined limitless power, but the thought came out vague and half-formed. What would it be like to shape reality when making change up until now had been like pushing against a brick wall? She found the thought a little disturbing, but at the same time, the power appealed to her as much as it frightened her… or almost as much.

“This world is cruel and unfair,” she said. “For our people, and for many others. If I had the power, I would right that wrong. I would lead the world to a better place.”

“I see,” he said. He smiled. “And what would that world look like?”

Lux returned the smile and handed him a skewer of meat. “Would you have me go through each way that this world is terrible? We’d be here all night.” She took a bite from her own skewer. The meat was tender and a little spicy. All that work felt worth it. She realized only now how much she’d missed hunting.

She turned to Solas. “Even without the orb, the Inquisition will make the world better,” she said solemnly. “The work I’ve done will not go to waste for want of an orb, I can promise you that.”

“Your determination is always inspiring,” Solas replied. “But I wonder what will happen when the Inquisition hits the limits of what it can do.”

“I’ll push it farther, of course,” Lux said with a broad smile. Solas smiled back again, but it was half-hearted and momentary before he returned his gaze to the fire. So it wasn’t the orb that was bothering him.

Lux sat in silence for a moment as they ate. She would allow herself one push, she decided. “Before we return to Skyhold, you should tell me what’s on your mind,” she said. Solas looked up at her, still hesitant. “Whatever it is,” she continued, “you don’t have to bear it alone, my love. Remember?”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “Let us walk together after dinner, and I shall tell you.”

That was good enough for her. “Alright.” She leaned into him and he accepted her, if a little reluctantly. They ate the rest of their food as the fire’s warmth waned and the stars came out.

When the food was finished, Lux shivered again. Solas brought her her tunic, and she buttoned it up while he brought waves of dirt and water over the fire to put it out. When it looked completely dark, Lux stomped on the coals to make certain of it. Then Solas finished packing while Lux saddled Hanin and the other hart. When Lux tightened the saddle, Hanin turned and took a chunk of her hair in his mouth. She batted him away and gave him the heavier pack. “That’s your sentence,” she said playfully. “My hair was singed before, but now it’s wet with your slobber.” He nickered and she sighed. The beast was too smart for his own good. 

Solas joined her by the animals. “Where shall we go?” she asked him.

He took her hand. “Do you remember the waterfall near here?”

“I do,” she said with a smile. “I remember it being somewhat romantic.”

“It does have a certain atmosphere,” he conceded as they walked. The harts walked in pace behind them, but kept a respectable distance. _Too smart_ , Lux thought again. Solas, meanwhile, fell silent. His hand was warmer than usual, clasped tightly in hers as if in anticipation of something tearing them apart. She thought she’d be used to it by now, but the intensity with which he carried himself still made her heart pound in her chest.

They walked through a narrow cave and emerged in the clearing. Lux looked up; the sun was gone, but the sky was almost as bright from the light of the moon and the stars. The water was liquid silver, the grass and rocks painted in deep blues and greens. It was like walking in a painting. 

Lux shivered suddenly, but not from the cold. “Is that… the Veil?”

“Yes,” he said, surprised and perhaps a little impressed. “It is thin here.” 

Lux turned and smiled at him. “See? I’ve learned _something_ from you.”

He let go of her hand and cupped her cheek, and there was that intensity again. Her smile faded. “I’ve been trying to determine some way to show you how much you mean to me,” he said softly.

She took his hand in both of hers. “You have, Solas,” she said. “With your counsel, with your deeds, with your comfort. You don’t need to do any more.”

“That is…” he traced the line of her cheekbone with his thumb. “Comforting. Thank you, Vhenan.” He brought his hand away from her and turned to face the water. Lux studied the shape of him, the way he folded his hands behind his back. She only realized it now, but she’d taken to carrying herself the same way.

She reached out to him, but he turned back to her before she touched him. “Do you remember when we spoke at the stables? About Blackwall, about telling the truth?”

Her expression darkened. “I do,” she said solemnly. “Are you going to tell me I made the wrong decision? Because I hold to what I said.”

“No, no,” he assured her, his voice rushed. “I only… I’ve thought about that conversation for some time, and… there is a truth I’ve been keeping from you.”

“A truth,” she echoed. She looked long and hard at him. To a stranger he would look calm, but she saw him, and he was terrified. She found herself regretting what she had said about cowards. She was angry and righteous and still the Inquisitor, and if it caused him pain… but she couldn’t tell him that now, could she?

“And what truth is that?” She took his hand in hers and kissed it. “You can tell me.”

“The truth is, I…” his words caught in his throat, and Lux waited. She brought her hand up to his cheek.

He took it in both of his and pushed it away. “Your vallaslin,” he said, his voice coming out in a rush. “The Dalish were wrong about them. They are not dedications to your gods. They are slave markings.”

Lux frowned. She wasn’t sure what to say.

Solas continued. “When your clan died I thought it best not to tell you, but after the Temple I could not keep it from you any longer.”

She touched her face. She remembered when she received them, how they felt hot, electric and painful on her cheeks at first. She hated the pain, but she couldn’t stop looking at her face whenever she saw her reflection.

“This is a brand?” Her words came out far too shocked; she calmed herself. “How do you know this? How can you be sure?”

“In the Fade, I…” he paused. “I have seen it. In ancient Arlathan, slavers would mark their property to honour the gods they favoured.” He avoided her gaze. “I am sorry.”

She turned away from him.

She had chosen Mythal’s markings for justice, for protection, for the stories her mother told her, so that she might have the protection of a mother even without her own on this earth. Mother’s favourite was Mythal as well, even though her father made her choose Sylaise. When Lux went to the Temple, she felt proud of her choice. She remembered her mother.

The thoughts came to her, but they broke in her mind and became tainted.

“I can remove them,” Solas said softly. “I understand if they mean something else to you… it is your choice.”

His words were still jilted and rushed. Lux would make sure hers were not. She let the thoughts come and break so that she would not stutter or falter. She thought of her clan, of hunting, of stories by the fire, of her mother. Of a boat on the river in flames, of a father she was never allowed to meet, of running through the forest smelling like hay.

“I want them gone,” she said. Her voice was calm.

“Alright.” He took her hands. “Sit down.”

They sat together in front of each other. He brought his hands up to her face and touched her cheeks. She kept her eyes locked in his as his hands turned bright with magic. The cool electricity of it was as familiar to her by now as the feeling of his body, but there was something else too, something that pulled at her. Her cheeks felt stretched for a second, like she’d been smiling too long.

And then it was done; the light faded. Solas brought her to her feet.

Lux touched her cheek. She couldn’t see it, but she felt it: they were gone. She was shaking.

As was Solas, she noticed. “Lux…” he cupped her face in his hands and brought her to him. “You are so beautiful.”

He kissed her, and she let go of all of those broken thoughts and lost herself in him. There was no Inquisitor, no hero’s story, nothing in that moment, only the beautiful and terrible sensation of vertigo, like she was falling away and all that remained was them. She pressed herself against him.

He pulled away.

“I apologize,” he said. “I have been a distraction. It will not happen again.”

Lux laughed. “A welcome distraction,” she said. She stepped forward.

He stepped back. “No, Lux. I cannot continue this any longer.”

Her heart sunk.

“This _?_ What? What,” she sputtered. “What do you mean, you can’t continue this?”

“I have allowed this to go on for too long. I should have…” his voice broke for the first time. His words were so weighed now, so measured. She felt sick. Had he _planned_ this?

“I told you it would be easier in the long run,” he finished quietly, measured again, almost a monotone. 

Lux felt her own words catch in her throat. “No,” she said, and swallowed her feelings. They argued over many things, and this was no different. She would make her case. “Don’t do this to me, Solas,” she started, sounding as dignified as she could. “You’re not a distraction. Your feelings have helped me immeasurably. I have weighed every decision I’ve made as Inquisitor, and this is… this is no different…” her voice stumbled to a whimper, and she realized that her cheeks were flooded with tears. “I love you, Solas. Don’t go…”

He made to step forward, to comfort her. She saw it. But she saw him hesitate, and she felt that distance again, the one she once felt she couldn’t cross. The one she thought she’d closed.

She had failed. It was there the whole time. The whole time…

“I am so sorry,” he said again. “In another world, perhaps…”

Her legs shook. She felt anxious all of a sudden, she felt naked. She had to go. She had to find somewhere safe. She was crying and she probably looked terrible… if someone were to see the Inquisitor in this state…

Solas must have seen, because he backed up a few steps and then turned from her. He walked slowly at first, but as he neared his hart his steps grew faster, and then he leapt atop her and sped away, and he was gone.

Gone.

Lux fell to her knees. She had been so stupid. She had failed. The Inquisitor, dumped by an apostate elf of no standing whatsoever… what would the court think? After she had been so public about their relationship? What had she done wrong? Was it the vallaslin? Was it another test?

A test… how many of those tests had she failed? When did he find she’d failed his standards? Was it the wardens? Blackwall? Or was it just that he’d seen her now, seen all of her and come to know her? Did he not like what he saw when he saw the whole of her?

He was a distraction, he’d said. How patronizing. She was the Inquisitor, she decided how she would spend her time, and he wasn’t a distraction. She was kidding. She was kidding, she didn’t mean it, it was only a joke… she meant that she loved him, that he made her burdens feel lighter… he was her love. The stories never ended this way. This wasn’t supposed to happen, she had to tell him…

She opened her eyes and found that she’d crawled her way to the edge of the water. She saw her face in its reflection. Without the vallaslin, her face looked so empty. She saw every imperfection. Her nose was broken and crooked, her cheek scarred, her cheekbones jagged from fractures and fights, her eyebrows bushy and knotted. Her eyes were swollen from crying.

Was he a distraction? Or was she?

If she was distracted while she was with him, she would show him focus, she decided. These were growing pains, and they hurt so terribly, but she remembered what her mother said. _Anger is a seed_. This pain would be her seed. It would grow into the strength of the Inquisition.

She saw a figure in the water. She whipped around and it was Hanin. He whined and nuzzled her, and she could see understanding in his expression. She stood up and buried her face in his fur. “Hanin,” she said, letting the last of the tears out. “My friend…" 

She pushed down the ache in her chest and wiped her eyes until her vision was clear. Then, she leapt onto his back and spurred him with a sharp kick. He hesitated at first, but she kicked him again and he took off at a blinding gallop. They sped over fields, past wolves and villages and lakes and into the sunrise. They sped against the wind until Lux’s face went numb from the wind. 

But she would not shiver. She would not falter. Never again would the Inquisitor allow herself such distractions. After all, those thoughts were all broken now; all that were left were thoughts of her mission, and of the road ahead. She galloped into it with all her might.


	27. Wound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux copes with her loss, and the Inquisition deals with the fallout.

The gates of Skyhold opened with a groan. At first, the castle was quiet, but quickly enough, someone caught sight of the blue-grey hart crossing the bridge. “Inquisitor!” Came a yell, desperate and startled. “It’s the Inquisitor!”

The yard came to life with nobles and peasants alike. People streamed out from the buildings and towers to catch sight of her as she passed through the gates. There was a ruckus in the crowd as someone shoved their way through it. “Make way,” Cassandra shouted from the midst of the mob, and people struggled against each other to give her room. Finally she got to the front.

 “Thank the Maker,” she breathed.

 The Inquisitor was silent, her head bowed low. She stopped in the middle of the crowd, but waited. When no one moved, she lifted her head silently and looked at them, and it was enough. The crowd gave way for her. She dismounted and started for the stables.

 “Where _were_ you?” Cassandra asked. “You were gone _six_ _days_ longer than you said you’d be. We worried you were dead.”

 “Evidently,” she replied, her voice cold and measured, “I’m not.” She gave Hanin to a dumbfounded Horsemaster Dennet, turned on her heel and started up towards the main hall. “I decided to complete some operations on my own,” she said.

 “ _Operations?”_ Cassandra hissed. “Our _Inquisitor_ went _missing_ to complete _operations_?”

 Cullen, Leliana and Josephine were waiting at the top of the steps. Cullen looked worried and upset and haggard, but mostly relieved; Josephine was tapping her quill against her notepad and looking at the crowd. Leliana’s expression was as usual: calculating. She was keeping her emotions to herself.

 Good. Lux didn’t need them. “The rifts in Crestwood and the Storm Coast are gone.”

 Cullen stepped forward and leaned in front of her, trying to catch her eye. She kept walking. “They’re _gone?_ You mean you--“ he exchanged a look with Leliana. “You closed them?”

 “Yes.”

 That seemed to silence them. She strode through the main hall, turned, and walked through Josephine’s office towards the council room.

 Dorian and Solas were in the hallway just outside the war table. Dorian’s whole body seemed to become lighter with relief when he saw her. “Inquisitor,” he said, smiling. “Welcome back. So good to see you’re alive.”

 “Thank you, Dorian.”

 “Ah, but your face, it’s different somehow. I can’t quite--ah!” he stepped forward. “Your markings. They’re gone!”

 “Yes.”

 “Did you… lose them?”

 “Not quite.”

 She met Solas’s eyes. He looked…

 No. She wouldn’t study him.

 She gave Dorian a nod and walked past them into the council room. “I’d like to make sure our influence in Orlais is secure before we go after Corypheus,” she said to her advisors, gesturing to the war table. “Josephine, I’d like you to set up some meetings with nobles near Emprise du Leon. I will be going on a tour, leaving in two days. While I’m there, I will clear out the remaining Red Templars. If there is any other business I should take care of, please let me know.” She turned to Leliana. “In the meantime, I’d like reports from our spies in Val Royeaux. Have you heard anything since I left?”

 “I… have not, Inquisitor,” Leliana said. “I will send the ravens.”

 She turned to Cullen. “Commander, I realize our forces are still wounded and encumbered, but we need them back in Skyhold as soon as we can. When they return, I’d like to send a detachment to Denerim. I’ve heard of abuses there near the alienage, and I’d like to remind Queen Anora of her royal duties.”

 “Lux,” Cullen said, reluctantly.

 “At the war table, I am the Inquisitor,” she reminded him.

 “…Inquisitor, then,” he replied, more forcefully now. “I’m sorry if I’m being brash, but you look unwell. Are you sure you’re…” her expression made him stutter a little. “Have you slept? Eaten?”

She frowned at him. Unwell was a kind way to put it--she probably looked horrid. Her hair and skin were covered in dirt and dried blood, her armour dull and dented. She had a wound in her side that forced her to walk stiffly with small steps. Her eyes were swollen and dry, weighed down by dark circles.

Still, she would not slouch. She would not falter. She turned from Cullen back to the war table. “Sleep is for the weak,” she said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to complete my overdue reports.”


	28. Distractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux pushes her feelings from her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very sorry for the *long* hiatus! I started grad school and it's been as hectic as everyone warned me it would be. I've worked out my schedule enough to get some writing in, though, and I haven't forgotten you or Lux!

“I have thus far been merciful in my judgments,” the Inquisitor announced to the court. “However, I find myself unable to find any justice in allowing you to remain alive.” She paused and glared at Cullen. How badly she wanted to take Samson’s head off. She gripped the arms of her throne tightly and straightened her back. “That being said,” she continued, “the Inquisition does not conduct public executions. There are others who would, in Kirkwall and elsewhere… but we do not outsource our labour here.” She leaned forward in her throne and stared Samson down. He lowered his head, but held her gaze. “You will rot in our cells. You will have no medicine for the pain, and no lyrium to keep you alive. You will succumb to the consumption that drove your army of slaves, and no one will hear your blithering self-pity.” She looked back up at Cullen. “Take him out of my sight.”

 “Yes, Inquisitor,” Cullen said, his expression stern. She wondered how he felt about the judgment.

 Samson slumped in front of her as the guards took him away. “Do as you will,” he said. “Your kind always do.”

 And indeed she did.

 Her advisors had been bothering her for weeks now about taking a rest, but she did as she willed; and it was certainly not her will to stop now. She slept only sparingly. At first, she only slept when she was certain Solas was awake; she wouldn’t shame herself by showing him her dreams. Soon enough, though, she realized that he was avoiding her in the Fade as much as she was him; she began allowing herself to sleep full nights. Even then, her dreams were fitful and full of broken thoughts, of fire and burning castles and demons that she wasn’t sure were from her head or from the Fade. She avoided them as much as she could, and worked hard to tire herself out during the day so that her sleep would be quiet and dreamless.

 As the Inquisitor, she worked easily, if more ruthlessly than before. She was undistracted, dignified and distant; back straight, shoulders down, chin up, fitted with a constant cold expression. Rarely, she allowed the nobles to see her righteous anger or quiet pensiveness, but no longer did she smile for all but those closest to her. Even with them, publically she was formal and clipped.

 Dorian was the first to approach her. He had the tact to wait for a private moment during a mission in the Hinterlands, in a secluded spot where scouts and onlookers were unlikely to overhear. “The Inquisitor is all business these days, isn’t she,” he remarked, his voice brazen and tinged with innuendo. When she didn’t respond, he became serious. “Lux, if you’d like to talk about it, I’m here.”

 Lux paused and allowed herself to relax a little. “He said he was distracting me,” she said, “so we have parted.”

 “ _Distracting_ you?” Dorian’s eyebrows shot up. “If the likes of a bald elf could distract you that much, you wouldn’t be cut out for this job.”

 “My thoughts exactly.” She couldn’t think about this anymore. She shook her head and led them back into the field, where Iron Bull was waiting. She suspected he’d kept his distance purposefully--had the pair schemed together to give Dorian a moment with her? She appreciated the sentiment. “At least things aren’t so complicated anymore,” she said to Dorian, cracking a smile. “Thank you for talking to me.”

 “Anytime,” he said, and exchanged a nod with Iron Bull.

 She didn’t take him up on the offer, though, nor did she allow Cole into her head when he approached her about it. He always managed to find a way in there anyways, so she took to avoiding him altogether, which she realized was quite the task given his invisibility. He must have gotten the hint eventually, though, because she stopped finding him and started finding pastries and fruits left in her room at odd times of day. Pecan was her favourite flavour, a fact he seemed to remember; but still, she wouldn’t speak with him about it.

 More than anyone, she avoided Lux. Being the Inquisitor was simple; armed and armored, she could avoid the broken thoughts rattling in the back of her head, and in doing so, find some measure of peace. Even if it hurt her companions’ feelings, they had to understand now; the priority was defeating Corypheus, and that was the Inquisitor’s job.

 At first, she could hardly bear to talk to Solas, but as things settled, her feelings dulled. It was still painful, and sometimes all the wanted to do was push and push until he came back to her and closed that distance. But eventually she came to terms with her failure: she never could give him a good enough reason not to pull away. When she learned to blame herself, the burden became easier to bear.  

 Still, she didn’t bring him on expeditions. He was still a distraction, if a manageable one. He noticed, too: she caught him once or twice looking at her across the hall with sadness in his eyes, though he always returned to his duties if she met his gaze. She wondered if he regretted the decision. She tried to convince herself that the thought of his regret thought brought her sadistic pleasure.

 She never quite succeeded.


	29. Letter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buried deep in the snows of the Emprise du Leon, Lux finds a story - perhaps just the one she needs.

It was about two weeks after Lux’s return from Crestwood when she found the letter.

Still awaiting the troops in the Arbor Wilds, she and Cassandra traveled to Emprise du Leon to rat out the remaining Red Templars and clear the road for their agents. They planned to stay out for a little less than a week. Usually she brought along two or three of her companions on such a long trip, but right now she needed quiet, and the two warriors were efficient enough on their own. More to the point, the last thing Lux needed right now was misguided sympathy, and Cassandra respected her enough not to be tender with her as the others were. She was content to talk about military strategies, Inquisition politics and troop morale, and so the pair made short work of the snowy countryside. It was rather refreshing.

 They made their way over the course of three days along the road, making camp early in the afternoon and then setting out to scour the caves and mines that dotted the mountain range. They found little activity, though, certainly less than Lux had expected; it seemed the Inquisition’s presence in the area was an effective enough deterrent.

 “It seems we’ve done our job so well that we’ve made ourselves unnecessary,” Cassandra joked, a rather rare thing for her. Lux indulged her with a chuckle, but truth be told, it frustrated her. Just when she needed something to do most desperately, her job became obsolete.

 On the fourth day, they doubled back along the other side of the road, bringing their mounts across the highest points of the hills overlooking it. The Inquisitor still needed to be visible, even if there were no villains to see it.

 It was there, near the high point of one of those hills, that Lux found the camp.

 At first, she made to call out to the tent as she dismounted Hanin and trudged through the snow; then she looked down and found the body at her feet, half-covered in snow. It was an elf, she realized. She turned him over and saw Vallaslin--one of her kind, though not from her clan. The lines were different from Lavellan’s, but she recognized Elgar’nan in the shapes.

 Cassandra dismounted and peeked through the tent. “There’s another one in here,” she said solemnly. She held the flap open for Lux to look, but Lux shook her head. She didn’t need to see.

 “It looks like they’ve been dead a few days, at least,” she said. The body was stiff and frozen, his skin blue and white. Lux tried to lift his arm, to position him in a way that looked more dignified, but he wouldn’t move. His hand was balled into a tight fist. He almost looked determined, she thought, and the notion chilled her to the bone.

 It wasn’t just determination, though--he was holding something in his other hand.

 Lux pulled at it and it came loose. It was a journal, its black leather cover cold but not stiff. She opened it to find most of the pages gone, but a few in the back still intact. The handwriting was sharp and shaky, and increasingly messy; she could practically see the shivering in the ink.

  _Mythal'enaste. First Vellan lost; now this weather._  
Ril can't stop shaking. No one lays eyes on the Cradle   
of Sulevin for hundreds of years and now we'll die for  
a story, after all.

She read the words a few times over. When she looked up again, Cassandra was in front of her, standing over the fire pit. She bent over and plucked a blackened scrap of paper from the ashes. “It looks like they used the rest of it for kindling,” she noted. “What does it say?”

 Lux read it again to make sure there was no mistake. “They were looking for the Cradle of Sulevin.”

 “Are you familiar with it?”

 “Yes,” Lux said softly. She closed the journal and pressed it to her chest. “My mother used to tell me stories. The Cradle is said to hold an ancient blade, sacred to my people. It was lost just before the fall of the Dales, but the blade was said to be far older. To think the Cradle exists…” she looked down at the bodies. “We should take this back to Leliana, and have her look into it.”

 They went about their duties as planned for the rest of the day, but found the Emprise more peaceful than expected—it seemed the Templars had indeed left for good when Lux established Suledin Keep. When the evening came without incident, they resolved to return to Skyhold a little early, so they packed up camp early the next afternoon and made their way slowly through the mountains, stopping in the evening about halfway home.

 The mountain road where they stopped was quiet and cold. Lux offered to find wood for a fire, but Cassandra insisted, leaving her to set up camp, and, when she was finished, huddle under her cloak and read what remained of the journal. There were only a few pages left, but in the flickering light of her lantern, Lux could make out in the shadows of the papers creases and lines of letters from pages long burned, and she squinted and felt the pages with her fingertips in a futile attempt to discern their meaning. Cassandra found her hunched over the book, pressing her fingers into the paper, and Lux nearly jumped out of her seat when the Seeker dropped a pile of dry logs in front of her.

 She looked down at the pile. “This should… certainly be adequate,” she said deliberately. Had she really been sitting there that long?

 Cassandra saw the book in Lux’s hands. They set up the logs in silence, but as they set about lighting the kindling, Cassandra looked up at her. “I must admit, Inquisitor, I am surprised,” she said. “I thought that after the Temple…” she hesitated, tripping over her words. Lux sat back in her place as the kindling came alight. “You told me you don’t believe in the Elven Gods. And after the Temple, I would imagine even less so.”

 Cassandra sat down across from Lux and produced from her bag two skeins of mulled wine, some smoked meat and a loaf of bread, which they broke and toasted a little over the fire. Lux took another longing look at the journal, then gingerly laid it in her coat pocket while she ate.

 “I suppose I always believed,” she said softly. “Just not in the way you do. Of course there are beings in this world more powerful than we can imagine. We’ve seen that sort of power in our lifetime. But I can’t convince myself that those beings care about us.”

 “So you believe the Maker is selfish?”

 “If the Maker has reason, how can we understand it?” Lux shook her head. “From down here, the machinations of Gods seem as random as anything.”

 “If that were the case…” Cassandra frowned. “I cannot believe that everything is chaos. I simply cannot.”

 “No,” Lux said. “Of course not. And that’s our task.” Her food finished, she took the book out again and felt the leather in her fingers. “Out of the chaos, we make something people can believe in. A story, a hero, a chosen one--the power in these things isn’t the Maker, but the belief. My people became gods because of belief. _That’s_ the power that makes sense.” She returned the book to her pocket, fearing suddenly that she would drop it and lose its last pages to the fire. She warmed her hands in the orange light and thought of those elves freezing to death in the dark, cold and alone.

 “So you wish to become a God?” Cassandra was incredulous. “You sound like Corypheus!”

 “Corypheus wants the power of a God first and foremost, and thinks that belief will come after,” Lux argued. “I want people to believe in me and in the work we do, and when they trust us with that power, I want to use it to change the world.”

 “But why does that belief matter to you so much? I would rather take the road less traveled, if it was the right one. If belief in you is all that matters, you should always take the most popular path, but where will it take you?”

 “You have me wrong, Cassandra,” Lux said. “I will do the right thing, but I will inspire people to believe as I do. The Inquisitor will show the people of Thedas the path to a better world. Perhaps I won’t be popular at times, but stories are powerful like that.” The words came back to her as she spoke them. She pressed her hand against her pocket and felt the book inside. “They move you.”

 “Change the minds of the people, inspire them, change the world _and_ defeat Corypheus,” Cassandra repeated. “You face a difficult task, Inquisitor.” She leaned forward and warmed her hands by the fire.

 “It’s stories that got me here,” Lux said. _Stories my mother told me._ “I will not lose faith in them now, even if they aren’t quite the same as I thought.”

 The next day, she sat up a little taller in her saddle. Grief had clouded her vision, made her doubt herself and her resolve - but this was just a part of the Inquisitor’s story, she realized. Someday, people would sing a verse of her heartbreak and how she overcame it.

 For now, she had to finish out her task. She took Hanin to the stables herself and strode across the courtyard. She ran up the steps of Skyhold two at a time and found Leliana waiting at the top. She handed her the journal. “I’d like you to look into the Cradle of Sulevin.”

 “The name rings a bell,” Leliana said, flipping through the journal as they walked towards the War Room. “I’ve been in contact with the Keeper of a nearby clan. She may know something. I’ll look into it.”

 “As quickly as possible,” Lux added.

 “Of course.” Leliana smiled. “Evidently it was important enough to come home early, despite the circumstances.” As she spoke, she nodded clandestinely behind them, and Lux turned her head to see Solas watching from the doorway to the atrium. Lux gave him a curt nod, which seemed to surprise him. She saw the shadow of a smile pass across his lips as he returned to his work.

 “He’ll want to know about this too,” she said.

 “Of course,” Leliana said. Her voice was all formality, but Lux saw her eyebrows rise slightly--a calculated gesture that could have meant surprise, intrigue or expectation, or perhaps all three, knowing the Spymaster.

 Lux left Leliana to her expectations. “Bring the report to my quarters when you’ve finished.”

 She changed out of her armour and sat down at her desk. When she arrived here, she requisitioned a number of old storybooks, an order Leliana had been surprisingly happy to provide… but she hadn’t had time to look through the books she’d sent. She took the time now.

 It was almost sunset when she was torn from her book by one of Leliana’s assistants. “Your worship,” the woman greeted when Lux answered the door. “I have a report for you.”

 She took it and thanked the woman, then leaned with her back against the door as she flipped through it.

 The report contained a map and a few rudimentary sketches of a broadsword that looked almost as tall as Lux herself. The sketches seemed to be drawn from several descriptions, because each was more different from the last; Lux skipped them and read the letter.

                                    _Leliana,_

_The Sulevin Blade is said to be one of the finest weapons ever crafted. The tale of its loss is rarely shared, but we're all impacted by Corypheus’s madness. If the sword may serve the Inquisiion, then it serves us all._

_During the Exalted March on the Dales, a band of elves used the sword to spill innocent blood. They hoped to power magic to use against their enemies. Instead, they were punished for their savagery. Spirits reached beyond the Veil and struck them down. As for the blade, to this day it lies broken on the cursed land. None may toucit without meeting the same fate as those elves._

_The sword is real, that I know. As for the tale, I cannot say. Stories told to frighten often involve a fair deal of embellishment. That doesn't mean something real did not inspire it._

_Neria,  
First to Keeper Elindra of Clan Ralaferin._

Lux wondered herself about the tale. She had the most vague memory of hearing something like it by firelight, of her clansmates being terribly frightened--but her mother told her other stories of it as well, stories of daring elves wielding the blade against the tyranny of Tevinter, of the blade saving the life of a young elven Warden during a blight. She wondered if those stories were true, or meant only to inspire her.

 It didn’t matter. The story she was about to inspire, at least, would be true. She trotted down the stairs and across the main hall with the report tucked under her shoulder, and arrived at Solas’s atrium.

 She found him putting the finishing touches on another fresco, this one green with shining gold and the dark figures of the elves they found there. In the centre stood what was at once a doorway, an Eluvian, and the silhouette of a figure: the temple’s missing god, Mythal. Lux resisted the urge to touch her face where the Vallaslin had once been, where she still felt naked.

 Solas turned towards her and she straightened her back and tucked her hands behind her, the formality matching his expression. “Inquisitor,” he said. His voice was as cool as when they were strangers.

 He was wearing his painting outfit--her favourite outfit of his. The thought nagged at her as she spoke. “Solas.” She produced the report and handed it to him. “At the Emprise, I found information that led us to a map to the Cradle of Sulevin. Before we confront Corypheus, I intend to find it and repair it, if possible. I expect to find spirits at the Cradle, so I’d like you to come with me.”

 Solas skimmed the report. “They say the Blade was lost to spirits through the Veil, but I wonder where it was before? If we know only that it was lost during the Fall of the Dales, it may be far older.”

 She crossed her arms. “Have you seen anything about it in the Fade?”

 He nodded, and his eyes grew distant for a moment. “Echoes of battles won and lost along its edge. Noble intentions long forgotten, a woman dressed in silver armour and deep blue silks. These impressions were faint when I saw them, and that was some time ago.”

 She leaned against the table. “Do you recall anything about its destruction? Anything we might need to know for our expedition?”

 “Of course,” he said, “but that story is far more typical. It is a tale of corrupted purpose, deaths of children needlessly given in the hopes of something greater emerging from their gnarled bodies. We’ve both seen it end before, Inquisitor.”

 Lux nodded. “That won’t be the end for the Blade, though, not if I can help it.”

 They fell silent. She realized she’d relaxed out of instinct--she was perched on the edge of the desk now, where she used to sit for hours at a time talking and listening just like this. The memory stung almost as much as it comforted.

 Solas handed her the report. “Tomorrow morning at the gates, then?” he asked, his voice no longer whimsical but cool again. It was clipped, though - just slightly unnatural. Lux wasn’t sure what to do with that information.

 “Of course,” she said, taking it as she stood up straight. “Tomorrow.”

 She allowed herself to dream that night, and as she expected, she found no traces of Solas in the Fade. Nor would she search. Pushing only made it hurt more, and the Inquisitor needed no more pain at the moment.


	30. Blade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> on the eve of battle, Lux finds her purpose - and finally speaks with Solas.

Lux took out the mob of skeletons around her just in time to see Dorian fall. She scanned the ruins for the others. Bull was nowhere to be seen, and Solas--

Something grabbed her by the neck and pulled her back, and then she was against a wall. She landed on her feet and swung around to face the creature. The mass of shadows towered over her, all black armour and tendrils of darkness. 

She swung her axe into it and it landed true--but she felt no flinch from the revenant, no reaction at all to the hit. At the last second she realized her arm was over-extended and the beast tore into it with magic that made her numb up to the shoulder. The axe fell from her hand. She reached for it but the creature brought its leg up into her stomach as she leaned forward, and the blow drew the wind from her belly. She only froze a moment, but it was enough--it coiled its long, armoured fingers around her neck and lifted her into the air.

She gasped helplessly, like a fish flopping on the shore. Her vision blurred. She grabbed at its hand with hers and tried to pull it off, but her fingers couldn’t find the strength. She stretched in her head for thoughts, for ideas, for anything, but all she could find was _air, air, air._

_Air._

And then air was rushing into her lungs, and she was on the ground and she could feel her body again.

The beast was against the wall. She felt that familiar cool electricity as it went down, and turned to see Solas across the glade.

She wasted no time. She pushed through the Veil and into the revenant and pulled with all her might, and time slowed to a merciful crawl as the beast was sucked into the tear. And then just as quickly it closed, and all in the grove was silent.

Lux breathed, thankful for that luxury. She lay on her back for a second and looked up at the crumbling ruins and the leaves of ancient, gnarled trees. It was that moment during the sunset when all is bright and glowing, just before the quick fall into nighttime that Ferelden felt this time of year. It would get dark soon here too. Lux rolled over onto her stomach and got to her feet. Blood rushed to her head and she slowed herself, taking another hungry gulp of air.                                                       

Bull was helping Dorian up. He cracked a smile at her. “My apologies, Inquisitor,” he said. “I just got so tired all of a sudden, and it looked like you were handling things fine on your own.”

“Something like that,” she replied. Her voice was gravelly and harsh. She massaged her throat. “And where were you, Bull?” She turned to the Tal-Vashoth, who was helping Dorian up with a tenderness that didn’t go unnoticed, by Lux or by the mage. 

“A mob of those skeleton zombies got me cornered up the stairs,” he said. “By the time I got them off me, you’d wrapped things up down here, boss.”

“Something like that.” She cracked a smile and returned to the place where the revenant stood. Pieces of its tattered cloak lay rustling on the ground, no longer wisps of shadow but a light, ancient material.

She lifted it and found the hilt underneath. Covered in the grime and dust of hundreds of years, somehow it still shone at just the right angle. It was long and sturdy, almost too long for a hilt, but it was a style she could get used to, she thought as she tested out different ways to hold it. She admired it for a moment, then lifted herself up and held it in the air.  

When she looked back to her companions, she found Dorian and Bull rather occupied with one another. Lux turned from them and found Solas examining the Veilfire torch on one of the columns, his hands tucked behind his back, relaxed despite the fight.

She joined him. “I suppose this is the first chance we’ve had to look around,” she said, as idly as she could. “What do you see?”

“These ruins were made to look young,” he replied, squinting to look more closely at what looked like letters engraved into the wall. “But the magic here belies their age. There was something else here before the Dales painted over the walls, I am certain of it.”

“Is there any clue as to why the sword was laid here to rest?”

“None,” he replied, turning to her. “That secret may have been lost with the spirits we felled. Do you have the last piece of the blade?" 

She held up the hilt again, in both hands this time. “It looks like a sizable blade… and the pieces are in fair condition as well.” She produced a piece of the blade from her bag and demonstrated, running the edge of the blade lightly over the tip of her finger. The wound stung like a papercut and drew a needle-thin red line.

“Wait.” Solas took her hand and drew it away from the blade.

Lux tried not to let the touch affect her, but he must have sensed the way her hand flinched, and not from the blood that now dripped from her finger. Still, she steeled herself. “Yes?”

“It would be unwise to draw blood on an ancient blade we have only just recovered,” he said. He took a small bandage from a pouch on his belt and wiped the blood from her hand, then dressed the wound. She felt his magic tingling in her fingertips. “Best to allow it some rest from blood, at least until we return to Skyhold.”

He returned her hand to her and she stepped back from him. “Of course,” she said. “Thank you.” She looked at her hand and found bruises on her knuckles. She didn’t remember punching a skeleton… or could it have been one of the revenants? “I suppose I have enough wounds as it is.”

He smiled. She tried not to think about what sort of smile it was. “It seems so." 

“Thank you for that as well,” she said, slowly. “My wounds would have been worse if not for your intervention.” 

She met his eyes for a moment, and they both recalled a conversation they had once. In another life, she thought--but then, for just a second, his eyes seemed to suggest otherwise. Lux let the moment pass in silence, and walked past him to the entrance of the grotto.

The trip back to Skyhold was quiet and slow. Dorian was still reeling from his injuries, and struggled to ride at any speed beyond a brisk walk. Bull rode next to him to keep an eye on him, leaving Lux astride with Solas ahead of them. Finally, about a third of the way into the journey, Dorian slowed his horse to a stop.

“I’m feeling a sudden desire for some tea,” he said, trying to remain cheerful. But he was falling off of his saddle. Bull jumped off his mount and held his arms out to catch him, but Dorian only steadied himself and pulled one leg over the saddle, slowly and deliberately. “Why, thank you,” he said, taking Bull’s hand. He slipped a little as he landed.

“We’ll make a pit stop here, boss,” Bull said, squinting up at the Inquisitor, who was still on Hanin. “You get your sword back to Dagna, and send a caravan our way when you get the chance.”

“I’ll send some medics with it,” Lux promised. She glanced at Dorian. “And keep him from any more recklessness, will you?”

“If you wanted me away from recklessness,” Dorian said weakly, “You’d keep me away from _him_.” He meant to only point at Bull, but he stumbled and pressed his finger into his chest.

Lux smiled to herself and nodded to Bull. “Take care,” she said, and spurred Hanin on along the path.

She felt the tension as soon as Bull and Dorian disappeared behind them. She hadn’t truly been alone with Solas since Crestwood, and the last ride they shared across the mountains like this was romantic and elated. She pushed the thought from her mind, and glanced up to find Solas looking at her.

“Is there something you need?”

“Not at all,” he said, and returned his eyes to the road ahead.

His bashfulness caught her off-guard. “Were you _worrying_ about me?” she asked, and then, more tentatively: “do you want to talk?”

“There is nothing more to say,” he said curtly, still staring forward. “Whatever pain you feel, you have steeled and sharpened it to a point against Corypheus. I am glad to see that.”

 _I must be a good actor if those are your true thoughts_ , Lux wanted to say, but she only gripped her reins tighter. She waited as long as she could - a moment or two, perhaps - so that she would not look so vindictive, and then she sped Hanin to a gallop and kept that pace the rest of the way home, keeping her eyes ever forward.

When they arrived at the gates, they found Skyhold empty of what few soldiers had returned from the Arbor Wilds. There were barely enough to hold a garrison, Lux thought grimly, but as she went to dismount and find the cause of it, she found Cullen waiting for her.

“Our forces hit a snag on the road back,” he explained. “A rockslide blocked a narrow path, and they had no choice but to clear it. Further instabilities in the area necessitated assistance.”

She threw the reins over Hanin’s antlers and leapt from his back with a force Cullen was not expecting. “Do you think the people will ignore this idiocy because of our victory?”  Her voice was more forceful than her landing. He took a nervous step back. 

“It has been three weeks since our victory,” she continued, “and people’s memory runs short in these times. I will not have the Inquisition fall in my absence to a rockslide.”

“What do you propose, Inquisitor?” he asked. It may not have been meant offensively, but Lux bristled all the same.

“Send a raven and bring as many soldiers back as you can manage, as quickly as _they_ can manage. The others will dig their way back by hand if necessary.” She emphasized the sentence with a gesture of her fist. Cullen looked down at her hand. He looked ashamed, and for a moment she nearly pitied him. She wouldn’t look weak, though, so she stormed off with Hanin to the stables, where she handed him off to Dennet, who already had Solas’s mount. _He must have left me with Cullen and gone straight to the stables,_ she thought. He was probably pleased to see the sharpness of her pain. She frowned at the thought.

As she ascended the stairs, she recalled the blade in her pack and quickened her pace to Dagna’s studio. She would not let anger ruin the pleasure of this victory.

The arcanist worked quickly, so Lux waited in the workshop while she finished, watching the waterfall outside. Even in this secluded part of the castle, it felt emptier without the soldiers around. The thought made her worry a little, but it was also somehow serene in the emptiness. The castle felt important when it was populated, but in this way it felt like _hers._ It was a feeling that made her wonder why her people were nomadic.

“All done,” Dagna chimed from her forge, and Lux leapt up.

The blade was wrapped in a cloth. “The pieces you brought me alone weren’t enough to reforge it, so I combined them with new metal and cleaned the handle up a bit.” Dagna handed her the blade, and immediately Lux felt its weight - it was heavy not only physically but spiritually.

“Let me know how it works,” the dwarf said with a little smile, but Lux didn’t notice. She looked down at the blade and felt it through the cloth. It was still warm. It was warm, it was hers, and no one had held it like this for centuries.

She found herself back in the throne room, the blade still gripped tightly in her hands. The room was practically empty, save for servants - and Solas, who it seemed was leaving the War Room.

She caught his eye, and all earlier transgressions were forgotten. “Would you like to see it?” she asked.

He hesitated.

“Come,” she insisted.

He folded his hands behind his back and seemed to tense up a little. “Alright.”

She led the way to her balcony, perhaps out of instinct; her eyes were fixed on the blade, and though she knew she needed to be outside to test it, she wasn’t sure why she came here instead of the courtyard. Still, Solas followed her. “Have you learned anything new about it?” she asked.

“We’ve barely returned,” he replied, bemused. “You haven’t even changed out of your armour.”

“Oh,” she said. “Right.” She didn’t have the time to be bashful, though, because they had arrived at the balcony.

“That being said,” he added, “I did find the time to reflect in the Fade on the spirits at the Cradle, if only briefly.”

She looked up at him, trying and failing to contain her excitement. “And?”

“I cannot yet be specific, but the blade is far older than it seems. It may be as old as Arlathan.”

“Truly?”

He nodded. “The story your people tell may have some truth,” he continued. “In the Fade I sensed anger, betrayal, lingering pain. But that spirit seems quieted now that you have given the blade new purpose.”

“ _Purpose.”_ She said the word in Elvhen: _Sulevin._ The word made the blade hers, just as the word was hers - even when her clan, her Inquisition, her lover failed her, even when her stories failed her, she always had purpose.

She slipped the cloth from the blade and grasped the hilt with both hands. _Sulevin_ shone like the sun.

“With this blade, I will kill Corypheus,” she declared. “With this blade, I will change the world.”

Nothing could have drawn her from that moment other than him. But she felt his gaze on her, and when she brought her eyes away from the blade long enough to meet his, she found him drawn to her as well.

She closed the distance between them in a stride and let the blade fall into one hand at her side as she kissed him.

Was it the force of that moment, or the spirit in her blade, or perhaps the desperation in his eyes that made her push? All she knew was that in the moment, he didn’t hesitate - he found a chink in her armour in the small of her back and slipped his hand under it and pulled her to him. Every kiss they had shared came back to her and she felt them all at once in this moment, in the warmth of his lips and the magic in his fingertips.

And as with every other time, she felt him return to himself. He would pull away, she knew. There would be regret and pain, even more now with the circumstances. He would look at her from afar and look away when she noticed. _You have sharpened your pain to a point_ , he had said. She understood.

She stepped back and opened her eyes. He was already looking at her, worried and regretful but also surprised.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she shook her head. “Don’t,” she said. “You shouldn’t always have to be the one to walk away.”

His expression changed to something unreadable. She saw shock and pain, but there were things she couldn’t comprehend, as well. She saw him try to regain his composure, and she saw that he wasn’t entirely successful.

Again, he looked like he was going to say something. But as he opened his mouth there came a crash from the sky.

Lux turned to the balcony. The sky glowed sickly green, light and darkness fracturing it like glass about to shatter.

“The Breach,” Solas said. “It’s coming from the Temple.”

The armies were gone; that left the Inquisitor. Lux lifted her sword. “Come on,” she said. “We need to get to the war room.”

She flew down the stairs, and thoughts of the kiss faded in the light of her purpose.


	31. Victory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lux is finally victorious... but there is an unexpected goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for a long wait - it's been over a year since I started this story!! I've been thinking a lot about writing a sequel that takes place post-Trespasser, and frankly I'm more excited about writing original content than rehashing in-game moments. So I might see if I can quickly put out the remaining chapters of this and get started on the stuff I'm really excited about. Hope you're still watching!

Corypheus knelt at the Inquisition’s feet.

Lux stood and strode across the clearing. She smelled the flesh of dragons, the burning of stone and the electricity of the Breach, like static on metal. She felt the warmth of her blade in her hands, the stiffness of callouses on her fingertips as she gripped the hilt. She felt the warmth of the air.

This was it, she thought - the moment she’d fought so hard for.

 She looked the magister in the eyes. She saw bitterness, hate, and somewhere deep inside, quiet acceptance.

 She sheathed her sword. Her hand ached with magic, energy rippling up her arm as she closed the distance.

 She took him by the collar. “You want to go to the Fade, you piece of shit?”

 She pushed. With all her might, she pushed, through lyrium and flesh and ribs, until she came to the heart.

 And she pulled.

 His body broke into pieces like a building collapsing in on itself, and then bit by bit he disappeared, until there was nothing left but the sputtering of the rift as it faded away.

 The earth shook. Boulders fell all around them. Lux took a step back and stumbled. She saw a shadow above her. She held out her hand to it, but something else got to it first and flung it away. For the briefest of moments she saw Solas before the ground gave way beneath her.

 When the world stopped spinning, she found herself lying on her back. She tasted blood; her lip had split open. But she was otherwise alright.

 “Inquisitor!” Cassandra called. Lux reached out and found the Seeker’s hand, and together they pulled her to her feet. Their eyes met as Lux held Cassandra’s shoulder and steadied herself.

 Cassandra couldn’t find the words.

 Lux only smiled. No words could express it better than that. She turned away and found Cole, a little disoriented but otherwise fine. She smiled at him too; his eyes brightened under his huge hat.

 “They will be waiting for us,” Cassandra said after a moment. “You should come and greet them.”

 “Yes, I…” Solas was still a ways back, crouched in the rubble. _The orb_ , she thought. She remembered its power in her hand, and feeling as if it had gone out.

 She looked back at the others. “I’ll be only a moment,” she said. “You go on ahead.” She smiled again, playfully this time. “Ready them for my appearance.”

 Cassandra nodded and started off down the hill, Cole in tow.

 Lux breathed for what felt like the first time in forever. All was quiet.

 Solas straightened his back as she found him; but he couldn’t hide his grief from her. She saw why when she looked down: the orb lay broken in his hands. The loss seemed to have crushed him, more than Lux had expected. His shoulders slumped in a kind of defeat.

 “Solas,” she said softly. “I wish we could have saved the orb. I’m sorry.”

 “It is not your fault.” He tried to be formal as before, but it was a token effort.

 He lay the broken orb on the ground and stood. He turned to her slowly. He looked so sad.

 There was something else, too, something Lux couldn’t place. She searched his eyes. Guilt?

 “There’s more, isn’t there?”

 “It was not supposed to happen this way.”

 She stepped towards him. For once, he didn’t step back. She knew not to take another step.

 “No matter what comes,” he said, every word heavy and slow, “I want you to know that… everything that happened between us was real.”

 She saw that look in his eyes again, and for the first time recalled the kiss on the balcony. _You shouldn’t always have to be the one to walk away_. He held her gaze and remembered it too. Then why did he look like…?

 “Inquisitor!”

 It was Cassandra’s voice. “Are you alright?” she called.

 Lux turned to look down the hill. “Yes, I’m up here! We’re--“

 She turned back to Solas, but he was gone.

 She looked all around her. Had he gone to join the forces? He wasn’t below her on the hill... a pit formed in her stomach.

 “Inquisitor!”

 Her companions had started up the hill when she emerged under the arches. Below them, down in the canyon, the forces were flooding in, the last leg of their journey home no doubt quickened by the promise of victory. She straightened her back; at once her doubts were gone from her and she was the Inquisitor, triumphant.


	32. Lull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Inquisition feels empty in the wake of Lux's victory... in more ways than one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a sad one!! But it was really cathartic to write.

In the wake of Lux’s great victory came a lull she had not expected. Of course, there was celebration at first: delegates from faraway lands come to thank the Inquisition for their efforts, ad-hoc parties in the courtyard, congratulatory pats on the shoulder and nods and smiles from soldiers Lux considered strangers. For that time Lux allowed herself to feel the jubilance that permeated Skyhold; it took no effort to walk straight and proud, to be the Inquisitor the delegates were so hoping to meet.

 But after a time, the delegates stopped coming, and the celebrations dwindled. Soldiers became tired of drinking nights away, and with repairs to the grounds basically completed, the evenings suddenly became strangely quiet. Jubilance gave way to precarity. What would happen now – to the soldiers, to Skyhold, to the Inquisitor? What was the Inquisition supposed to do when order had been restored?

 Lux, like many others in the castle, busied herself with as many tasks as she could find. There were still rifts to close and demons to destroy, and so she went about closing them, meticulously filling out the paperwork in her chambers afterwards, sometimes for hours. As Cassandra and Leliana prepared to leave for Val Royeaux, Lux took on some of their duties: training soldiers with Cullen, managing scouts and small-scale reconnaissance missions, keeping the crows fed and cared for. She read books on the history of the Chantry and the seat of the Divine, and told herself it was research. She trained for hours, patrolled the mountains, cleaned Hanin’s stables. Time passed slower and slower.

 She also oversaw the search for Solas.

 There was a time just after the battle when she thought he might come back, and so she neglected to send out search parties at first. She wanted to respect his space, and after the orb broke, it looked like he needed it. She managed to convince herself, for that first week or so, that that was what that look meant. But she knew otherwise, and she could only bury that knowledge for so long before it came crawling out, tying her stomach in sickly knots as it emerged into her conscious mind. She pushed the feeling down, and with the same rigor with which she conducted her other mundanities, she organized the scouting parties. And then, when their non-communication became too much to bear, and when the knots tied themselves so tightly that food barely went down, Lux went out herself.

 At first she wondered if the scouts had been thorough enough, and retraced their steps herself, beginning at what remained of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. They started a little too late – for the first couple of days, Lux hoped that he would return on his own from a trip to the Fade, or an expedition to some Elvhen ruins – but managed to find and follow his trail for a number of days as he snaked through forests, villages and mountains.

 After a week and a half, it went cold. The scouts had tried in vain to find any sign of him. Since then, it had been a guessing game: his supposed birthplace, Dalish clans living nearby, libraries he might have liked. It was fruitless and the scouts knew it. It was demoralizing work.

 Walking the path herself, Lux recognized his thinking in its contours. He would pass through a village and hint at his destination just enough that the villagers would remember, but not enough to cause suspicion or confusion. His camps were covered up with the kind of meticulous attention that made them catch the eye of an observant scout – leaves and stones re-organized a little too neatly, for example, or a fire pit covered by soil enough to leave a tiny bump in the earth. The discovery might earn a scout attention from their superiors, so that the company would turn in for the night feeling good about their detective work. They thought they were catching up to him. It was so unexpected when the trail went cold that it caught them off-guard, and in the time it took for them to regroup, he disappeared.

 Lux saw now what they hadn’t in the winding trails and confused witnesses. In these details she saw the appearance of logic, but under it the calculated measures of deception. He had been leading them on. If she had been there, she might have realized the trick sooner. Now she had nothing. She spent some time combing the area around the place where they’d lost him, but any evidence of his next steps was long gone by now.

 She stood at the place where the last signs of him had been found. The scouts thought they might have followed some false lead somewhere that took them off course, but Lux knew otherwise. He wanted them to know exactly where he had lost them.

 It was quite a beautiful view: birch trees lit aflame by autumn leaves along rolling slopes dotted with evergreen. What was he thinking as he stood here, she wondered? Did he imagine she would follow him here? Did he think of her at all?

 This was all she would find, she realized. Frustrated, and anxious to do work she hoped she would have, she hurried back to Skyhold.

 And there was work waiting for her, reports and paperwork and the like – but within an hour, she had finished it.

 She paced back and forth in her room. She flipped through her books, though the words would not register in her mind no matter how hard she squinted at them. She exercised. She had a practice sword and dummy brought to her, and practiced until the dummy was little more than a pile of wood pulp. She read and reread reports and filled in her writing so that it was as neat as she could make it.

 Finally, when work would not hold her mind, she decided to have some ale.

 The Harald’s Rest was quiet, as it had been for some time. Lux found herself thankful for that – she wasn’t in the mood for stiff conversations with foot soldiers. She ordered herself a drink and found Bull in his usual place, Krem at his side.

 “It’s been a while,” Bull greeted as Lux took a seat across from him. His voice was still muted – if the Chargers had ordered a round, it had only been one. Lux’s eyes rested on the fresh bruises on his chest and shoulders – not from demons or bandits, but from training, judging from their measured sizes and awkward locations on his body.

 “I see you’ve been keeping busy,” she said. She watched him – would he sense the weight that phrase carried, or would he see it as simple small talk?

 He glanced down at the bruises. “Yeah,” he said, nodding and brushing one lightly with his hand. “Trying to stay in shape.” His own wording was so delicate that Lux was almost uncertain whether he understood her meaning – until he glanced up at her and she saw the recognition in his eyes.

 Lux felt herself relax a little, and smiled lightly. “You’re not the only one.”

 “How _are_ you holding up, Boss?” Bull leaned back in his seat and rolled his neck. It was an affable gesture – meant to relax her, make her feel welcome to speak truthfully – but turned on her, Lux found the subtlety unnerving.

 Besides, all things considered, she _was_ fine. Perhaps a little too worried about becoming bored, and yet to fully relax since the Inquisition’s great victory, but not bad. So it was the truth when she sat up and said, “Preparing for what’s next, hopeful for the future, and well.”

 “I see.” He scrutinized her for a moment, then dropped his shoulders. He looked a little disappointed. “That’s a good place to be, I guess.” He hesitated a little before asking the next question – which tipped her off as to what that was. “Did you find anything on the trail?”

 “Unfortunately not,” Lux said, her voice clipped. “But that wasn’t a surprise. We both know that Solas won’t be found unless he wants to be.”

 “He is a sneaky bastard. And quiet on his feet.”

 He was, Lux remembered. Except for when he hesitated before taking a step forward – then he would lean back ever so slightly on his heels, and the floors of Skyhold would creak just so with the shift.

 She was so used to the sounds of his hesitation.

 Her stomach coiled around itself, and something bubbled up in her throat, but she pushed it down and made herself smile. Bull was being lighthearted. She would be remiss to ignore his attempt. 

 “He is.” She stood up. It would be quieter upstairs, she decided as the bartender passed her a warm mug. “Have a good evening, Bull.”

 Bull’s eyebrows furrowed, but he did not protest. “See you later, boss.”

 Lux ascended the stairs slowly. Her hands were shaking a little from the training – she supposed it had been a long day – and she didn’t want to spill her ale. There were no empty seats on the second floor, so she continued to the third.

 Cole was there, standing by the window. Good. She had been meaning to ask about some mysterious thing that had happened in the kitchen – or was it the gardens – that in any case was probably his doing.

 “Hello, Cole,” she greeted.

 He turned to her, but his eyes were not looking at her – they were distant. More than usual. He was somewhere else.

 “I’m sorry, Cole,” he said. She opened her mouth to question him, but he continued.

 “With your gift, I fear that you might see the path I now must walk in solitude forever.”

 Those weren’t Cole’s words.

 “This fate is mine alone. Indeed, I would not wish it on an enemy, much less someone that I once cared for.”

 Lux’s hands shuddered and ale spilled over her fingers onto the floor. Cole’s voice faded from her ears. In its place she heard Solas.

 “Though you reach out in compassion, I must now insist that you _forget_.”

 That _thing_ bubbling up in her chest threatened to burst. The mug slipped from her fingers, but she didn’t hear it hit the ground. She watched Cole return to her, saw the confusion in his eyes.

 “I’m… what were we talking about?” he asked her. “I’m ready to help people when you are!” He _had_ forgotten, hadn’t he?

 Lux pushed her feelings down as hard as she could. This might help the scouting party. They could add more mages to the parties, search for magic, charms, memory hexes, Fade magic. They might find him if people remembered him…  “Of course, Cole, we are going to help people. The Inquisition will do everything it – _I_ will do everything I can to – I will – I –” she choked on something. The words wouldn’t come out.

 “Lux?” Cole was looking deep into her eyes now, and she was terrified all of a sudden that he would see those feelings she had buried, until she saw in the reflection of his eyes that there were tears all over her face and she was sobbing.

 And all at once it came out. Her shoulders heaved. Her legs shook with the weight of her sobs. She fell against Cole’s arms. He tried to hold her up, but she sunk to the ground. Her sobs became terrible sounds, like some dying animal. They took the breath from her and they became gasps, and gasps became retching, as if she were breathing some noxious fume. She forced the air into her mouth and tears and snot came in with it, and she coughed, and the coughs faded into more sobs and they became quiet again. She held fast to Cole’s hands.

 “Better like this. Quiet like when mamae died.”

 He was listening to her, she realized, but words would not form on her tongue. She tugged at his shirt. He sat down next to her. He tried to give her space but she closed it, clinging to him like a child, like a drowning man grasping at driftwood.

 “It’s over,” he said. “It’s all over, and now it can hurt.”

 Her chest swelled and more tears came. Easier this time. _Now it can hurt._ She stopped holding them back.

 “That’s it. Pushing for too long. Like a dam holding back the floods. It has to come out now.”

 Lux made another sound, a sound that was supposed to be a word but became a long groan, pain and tears and hurt.

 “So much weight for so many years. But you’re _here_ now. We’re all here.”

 Her eyes shot up. The others – the bar was full. The Inquisitor –

 Dorian was standing at the top of the stairwell. He was concerned – scared? – but then all at once he was affable and light, as if he’d walked in on a casual conversation. “We close the bar for a private party and you’ve already passed fun-drunk and gone straight to blubbering-incoherent-drunk? This is _not_ what I signed up for!”

 She laughed. It came out as another strange sound, another bubble out of her chest. Like a hiccup. He smiled a little again, but earnestly this time, and stepped forward and knelt in front of her.

 Bull was behind him. “The Chargers got everybody out before they heard anything,” he said. “And Cassandra made some noise in the courtyard. You’re safe.”

 Lux pulled herself up enough to fall forward into Dorian’s chest. She cried more quietly, now. Her voice was tired. Dorian’s shoulders stiffened at first – he wasn’t sure what to do about this – but he settled for rubbing her back, like she was sick to her stomach. “Don’t worry about the clothes,” he said softly. “I’m sure the maids won’t complain about washing them for the third time this week.”

 Cassandra came up the stairs. Lux looked at her from under Dorian’s arm. Her face was red. She’d probably been standing at the foot of those stairs for some time.

 “Inquisitor, I…” she tried to compose herself. “I apologize. I should have done something more to--”

 “Not much you could have done,” Bull interjected, “as long as she was keeping it from us.”

 His words should have stung, but she hardly felt it at this point.

 “Not _from_ you,” Cole explained. “ _For_ you. Better to be birds in the sun than on the ground. Wings get hurt, and no one believes…”

 “It’s okay, Cole. I didn’t mean anything by it.” Bull looked down at Lux again. He was leaning against the windowsill now. He meant to look casual, but Lux knew he was blocking the view. “She had to take her own time.”

 And she did. She cried another minute – or two, or five, she wasn’t sure anymore – and they waited quietly for her. In the silence she heard the others – Varric waiting at the bar, Sera looking out the windows to make sure no one was looking, Vivienne making some concoction. She heard Blackwall’s voice, hushed so she wouldn’t hear him, as he agreed to guard the door from the outside. Cole was right: they were all here.

 She pulled away from Dorian and sat in a ball on the floor, hugging her legs.

 “Thank you,” she whispered. “And… I’m sorry.” her voice wavered again, but her eyes were dry.


End file.
